is Rebecca. Hi Rebecca. Now a little test for you to start the programme
with …could you name the five senses for me?
Rebecca: Well, there's sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
Kate: That's right. Well, today we're talking about synesthesia. This is the name
we give a condition that some people have where their senses are mixed up
or confused.
Rebecca: Yes, I've heard of that – I think the most examples are when people strongly
feel a sense of colour when they hear music or taste something. eg. the taste
of lemon gives someone the strong sense of the colour blue.
Kate: Exactly. Some other examples are seeing or feeling the colours, sexes, and
personalities of letters or numbers and smelling colours and sounds.
Rebecca: Sounds bizarre but I'm looking forward to finding out a little bit more….
Kate: First to my question for this week: is synesthesia more common in men or
women?
Rebecca: answers
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2009
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Kate: We'll find out the answer at the end of the programme but first to our
speaker for this week, James Wannerton who has the condition, synesthesia.
He's going to explain some more details about what it is and how it affects
him.
Extract 1
We all have five senses, sight, sound, hearing and touch and smell and they all operate
independently of one another, it's just that in certain individuals those two senses are
combined. I mean, for example, someone with synesthesia may smell a shape or they might
hear a touch or in my particular case I actually taste sound.
Rebecca: Wow – he says he can taste sound! I've never heard of that combination
before. Let's find out more:
Extract 2
I've had this since I can remember since I was 4 or 5 and it's been exactly the same. Every
single sound has maintained and kept exactly the same taste.
Rebecca: So he's had the condition since he was 4 or 5 years old and every sound has
kept the same taste. That's interesting…. so what happens if it's a bad word
with bad or negative meaning, something like coffin (which in a box in
which we bury the dead). What kind of taste does he get from this?
Extract 3
It's totally arbitrary – coffin for example tastes like a sweet, a hard-boiled sweet.
Kate: Arbitrary means without reason or something that is based on chance. To
him the word coffin tastes like boiled sweets!
Rebecca: So there must be a few problems having this condition, interesting though it
might be. I can imagine it must be quite lonely in a way – trying to explain
to other people or articulate what he is experiencing. Articulate means to
be able to express something clearly in words.
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2009
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Kate: Let's listen to the next extract – he also mentions foodstuffs. This is a
general term which refers to any substance used as food or used to make
food. Texture is how something feels so the degree to which something is
rough or smooth, soft or hard. Often tastes and texture are closely related in
how we experience something when we eat it.
Extract 4
I get a lot of tastes that I can't articulate as foodstuffs. I'm getting this fairly complex
mixture of tastes and textures on my tongue. It feels very real to me. The difficulty is
articulating this into a food taste that somebody else can understand.
Rebecca: So he has a problem identifying how something tastes himself.
Kate: Yes that must be frustrating. I wonder what other problems he also has? In
the next extract, you'll hear the expressions taste sensatations and
distracting. Can you explain what these mean?
Rebecca: Sure taste sensation is the feeling you get when you taste the flavour of
something and distracting means that something is making it difficult for
you to give it your full attention. Let's listen: what else does he find difficult
about having the condition?
Extract 5
I have a problem with people who speak slowly. It's just the more words that
go in, the more taste sensations I get – it's one after another. It's very distracting … it's quite
difficult to try and take in what someone's saying when you're getting the taste of jelly and
chocolate and stuff all the time.
Kate: He said that when people slowly are clearly, it fills his head with some
many taste senstations that he can't listen to what they're actually saying.
All he can thing about are the tastes he's experiencing – in his case, jelly and
chocolate!
6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2009
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We're nearly out of time, so let's have a quick run through some of the
vocabulary we've met today:
synesthesia - this is the name we give a neurological condition that some
people have where two or more of these senses are mixed up
coffin a box in which we bury the dead
arbitrary means without reason or something based on chance
articulate is to be able to express something clearly in words
foodstuffs - this is a general term which refers to any substance used as food
or used in making food
texture is how something feels so the degree to which something is rough
or smooth, or soft or hard
taste sensation is the feeling you get when you taste the flavour of
something
distracting means something is making it difficult for you to give your full
attention
Kate: And finally to the question I asked earlier. Is the condition more common in
men or in women?
Rebecca: I guessed it was more common in men.
Kate: I'm afraid you were wrong – it's actually much more common in women
According to studies in the US 75% more women have it then men and in
the UK, it's 89%.
Rebecca: That's quite a difference!
Kate: Well, that's all we've got time for today. Thanks for joining us and until next
time. Goodbye!
