Sakiro Wrote:
Pseudo-Synesthesia through Reading Books with Colored Letters http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad … ne.0039799

...This is a strange concept and I don't think it would be a good thing to do, because it's based on color-letter association imposed from the top-down, which isn't going to be congruous with most folks because everyone's natural associations are (obviously) different.

Imposing a set of arbitrary associations as 'one size fits all' rules and then programming them via experience is as easy as programming in an association between the color green and electric shocks; it's pure pavlovian. But since the color green isn't really associated with electric shocks in real life, this is just increasing incongruity by creating a false association.

To practice synesthesia, we need to know our own natural associations with each letter or number. An outside source just 'deciding' what color each letter 'should' be for everybody is creating a false association for most who wouldn't 'naturally' see those color associations themselves, and this could in fact slow down or prevent development of true synesthesia (aligned with real metaphorization associations and in-vivo neural wiring for each individual).
Best,
AR

Hi dude,
Gosh a very interesting post to wake up to!  :  )  The reply is a bit long, but I'm so interested in this it's difficult to stop.

Sakiro Wrote:
Alex i think you are right .. but don't you think that we can too develop "wrong" synesthesia if you do it the way you say too?

In brief, tutorials are advocating and giving examples for basics-based, bottom-up learning because that's the safe (and quickest) way to go. It's the way biology develops as intended, and I doubt if we could go wrong by allowing it the opportunity to do that. More about this below.

[s] (maybe if you have a lot of wrong use in your rear nets) I mean, if you rear end had wrong associations you can associate colours, sounds, or any sense with the wrong input .. example imagine someone that see the colour red and feel "relaxed" (which one would assume that should happend with the colour blue)

If we develop & balance rear nets first (always do things...) this shouldn't be an issue, but trying to develop synesthesia before doing so could indeed cause problems -which is why it's not in beginners tutorials. (Imagine we are asked to decorate a building with no idea what it is for (no associations)...we may do gentle pastel colors and then be told “But, it's a heavy metal night club”...and we think, it would have been easier if they'd told us that first!)  :  )

The sort of practice recommended in tutorials sticks with the basics to be safe, in case some haven't got there yet, and we assume that everyone doing tutorials IS doing things in the right order. The physiological aims are things like connecting V4 with the angular gyrus, and we can't do that if either V4 or the angular gyrus is not yet fully developed.

[s] Probably there must be some "universal" associations in synesthesia that no matter what personal taste you have, some should stay the same for everyone (the basics the same, the details changes etc).

There are universals, eg red for hot, green for growth, blue for cold, black or shadows for unknown things, and knowing which shapes are probably 'Bouba or Kiki' (but not everybody consciously 'gets' even these). We can't however change natural unconscious responses to universals; for example every human who stares at bright yellow, orange or red is going to get increased blood pressure. This response may or may not be congruous with their conscious awareness, but it still happens whether we're consciously aware of it or not. The aim of tutorials is to get people 'tuned in' to these associations, and we know what they are through experimentation. Once we are consciously aware of the basics, the rest of our associations will follow naturally to 'fit in' with that. So I don't see how this could induce wrong association (but tell me if you think I missed something here?)

If the folks doing the 'induce synesthesia' experiment don't know this, they could well choose arbitrary counterfeit associations that contradict rather than augment our natural ones -for example pink 'means' G (for girls) and blue 'means' B (for boys).* Arbitrary beliefs like this break congruity by forming non-logical connections, but most importantly without the bottom-up physical associations, HTR2a won't produce the proteins that enable synesthesia and related abilities. If this gene isn't expressed in association areas we won't get true synesthesia; we'll just have a set of top-down imposed rules for association that don't make coherent sense with anything else in our memory. I wouldn't expect these associations to be permanent either; they will be categorized like we view the colors in board games (The blue counter is 'representing me in this game.') Consolidating the basics WILL activate this gene, and the rest should unfold as biology intended.

This is actually a very deep post because it brings out the reality that we can't 'teach' anything congruously by 'conditioning it in' from the top down; people need coherent personal associations to program it in (learn) from the bottom up in order to really grasp any subject or ability. We must be our own teachers; all that others (or books, or tutorials) can ever do is help our natural learning process along and show examples of what sort of things to do. This should definitely go in T12  :  )

[s] I understand that maybe in the NH journey one can "fine tune" the associations as you develop more congruence along your networks?

Yes; if rear nets are properly developed, synesthesia (as a natural process) should begin to emerge by itself; all we need do is help it along.

[s] did you have the experience that you have before a synesthetic association that now was replaced with another one? (maybe a sign that now is more conguent?)

I am probably totally the wrong person to ask this, as I've always had strong overt synesthesia and have had to work to tone it down rather than increase it. It's still an issue -I use a plain black computer screen with one icon** for this reason.  :  )  But one thing I have noticed is a broader range of colors have become more pleasant as I've developed different networks. Eg, I used to dislike most shades of green, yellow or pink (personal association with a nasty person from childhood), that's gone now (partly due to healthy outdoors experience of those colors in real life, partly due to reweighting the original emotional associations in their correct, broader perspective).

Another issue with experiments such as the one described is I can imagine it would be very hard to form correctly-weighted aesthetic associations without emotional stability. In anxiety the brain's not even seeing colors as it should. So what we are looking at is results from a group of (ordinary) anxious people conditioned to associate color with form via experience of repetitive input. This isn't going to activate any genes that enable synesthesia; whereas I have seen sufficient evidence to suggest that the sort of exercises we're doing can help activate that gene.

We will have complaints that there are 'not enough' exercises to develop synesthesia & metaphorization, but the important thing is if we've developed the supporting nets, synesthesia & metaphorization will emerge on their own just as surely as a plant will grow if given the right conditions to grow. By providing the basics we hope to help create those conditions.
Best,
AR
*150 years ago in the same society it was believed to be exactly the opposite way round- pink 'meant' boys.
**the recycle bin.

Alex, do you know why we can develop imagination for example listening audiobooks (the mere act of listening that words "triggers" images in your minds) but .. this doesn't happend (because if it does there will be no reason to do the exercise) with listening the words merged with another sense? (example watching tv, or just listening to a person talk face to face?) .. is because somehow you can concentrate better with the words you hear and process internally the images that when there is another senses "competing" with it? (ej: vision)

I was thinking that a lot, that maybe is just a first step (audiobooks) because something that i'm starting to be aware that is pretty obvious anyways is that when i'm listening to someone or reading something, or trying to understand something .. every time i "got it" i'm somehow aware of my own mind creating images scenarios of the "stuff" trying to understand .. when that doesn't happend .. i just "don't get it" ..

Seems like the mind (conciously or unciously) is doing that for everything we read or hear .. and is interesting to "see" what internal images it creates for more "abstract" stuff is easy to "see" that if someone is explaining you someehing concrete like "you need to turn left and the right" you will recreate that internal and concrete experience in you mind .. but for more abastract stuff (ej mathematics?) is there when the process of methaphorization is used? .. or to do the "transfer" for N3 to N5 (or it goes to N4 to N5?) it uses another one? (in tutorials says N1/N2 to N3 is analogization and to N3 to N4 Methaphorization) maybe to N5 will be called "abstraction"? if it works something like this i get even more why (again) one should do thing in the right order lol =)

And isn't curious how long time ago we seems we speaked a lot more in metaphorical terms and nowadays not so much? i think about that when i see a few rome/gladiator series/movies and it looks like it deliver their message a lot more strongly that way .. (but it could be a little too much for my taste ..) but is a cool observation i think ..

Another study about self-training Synesthetic abilities

But, again, another "top down" approach.

Still interesting to see the power of plasticity lol =)

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/141118/ … 07089.html

long post, replying to long ago statements.

off topic post about musical anhedonia.  Feel free to move to a more appropriate location.

Alex wrote:

...Consider -is 'feeling happy or sad' in itself calling up memories of previous states? From an evolutionary psychology perspective, that's exactly what it is. -Association. Unconscious memory for automatic emotional responses is hard wired in -but it's still memory.

Experiment idea: Play yourself different types of music and test whether your heartbeat/pulse/BP goes up or down in a repeatable way. Then you know whether music is affecting you unconsciously.

this is difficult to explain.  Music does "affect" me, but so does any "noise". I find background music distracting, even irritating and would rather silence unless I'm using music to drown out some more irritating background noise, like people talking while I’m trying to concentrate. 
  If music appreciation is hard wired, then why don't all people from different cultures or even within the same culture all like the same music? Should there not be a perfect set of tones that all humans find pleasing?

Looking online, I found there is quite a bit of research on the subject
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. … -the-Mind/
is an article that links to these studies,
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00133-X
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/conten … 80306ca5a0
if you go to the Barcelona University website you can take an only survey test.
Unfortunately what I find is the "research" categorizes things, and compares music to monetary reward.
There is no information I can find on repairing or improving things.


  I know I'm missing out on something that the majority of people put in the top 5 most important things in their lives, and want to address this.
I have difficulty following lyrics, and making out accents, so I started doing the tutorial 5 auditory exercises, thinking it might be an inability to discern nuances that makes me lack appreciation. I find them tedious and boring, but stuck with them for a month hoping to see some improvement.  One improvement from this has been that I pay close attention to how people speak. No obvious improvement in musical appreciation.

An experiment I did that was informative was I collected about 2000 songs from various genres, and started listening to music twice a day.
Any time I found myself paying attention to the music I marked that song with a note stating what I felt at the time. Normally the word that came to mind was "invigorate".  I gathered about 50 such songs, and they were from varied genres. What I figured out was common among them, was they were all used in various movies (most of) which I enjoyed.  This also explains "thus spake Zarathustra" which was used in "2001 a Space Odesye"  A few other songs reminded me of specific places and events in my past with no obvious correlation to visual media.
  I made a playlist of these 50 songs and played them for few days, but they quickly lost their "invigorate" feeling.  A month off, and (some of them) recover that feeling.
 
  Another thing I tried was to download all the lyrics to the music I was listening.  This helped my "appreciation" tremendously for much of the music! I can see now why you enjoy Rush so much Alex.  The lyrics make the music.
But, I enjoyed reading them about the same as listening to them, and in some cases more so.

  Musical instruments.
We have a piano, acoustic guitar, alto sax, bongos, harmonica, and a recorder. I messed around with each one for awhile, but did not feel any kind of interest. Should I force myself to "learn" one?

My last experiment was to "forced association".  Every year I go on a motorcycle road trip with a friend, just exploring the countryside. I really enjoy this trip so last summer down through the Appalachians, I listened to the local radio station as much as I could stand over two weeks. Now when I hear those songs, they do elicit the feelings of being on the open road. I don't know if this was a good trade off though, as it detracted from enjoying the original experience.

any advice on how to exercise or hack this limitation is appreciated.
I'm thinking I may need a hard take off approach, as I don't mind music when I'm drunk. (unless it is too loud and gets in the way of conversation)

Alex wrote:

..Seems to me sneezing, when we don't yet know if there's a predator around, would not be an evolutionarily beneficial behavior....

I wasn't clear here.  When I am suddenly exposed to bright light, it make me want to sneeze, which I find very uncomfortable. So I move into bright areas slowly and cautiously, thereby preventing sneezing while allowing my eyes to adjust to the brighter conditions and then able to see potential threats.

Alex wrote:

....The olfactory & optic share an exit/entry region but not route. The trigeminal comes out/goes in the brainstem, nowhere near the others. (The cranial nerves are normally referred to as 'coming from' the cranium; but obviously they are conveying info in both directions).
have a look:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_nerves
However, all 'routes' begin/end with network 3. All sensory info is correlated there. The specific areas where synesthesia (and metaphorization) take place are outlined by Rama (see Tutorial 11).

thanks for looking that up.  I was thinking the trigeminal nerve might be associated because it’s involved in activation of the mammalian dive response.

Hi dudes,
Very interesting topic! Please forgive long post.

Re: If music appreciation is hard wired, then why don't all people from different cultures or even within the same culture all like the same music?

I'm guessing you mean, people from different societies. 'Culture' is what all humans share; the universals which benefit us all. Our ability to use tools, learn languages, compose music, write books; this is human culture, which cultural anthropologists study. Societies are studies by sociologists, and they will probably tell us (in-between bacardis) that societal diversity occurs in the same way evolutionary diversity; due to isolation between groups, access to different resources, and several other things. Individual differences will be copied and add up to large differences between groups over time.

For some reason that explanation leaves something missing to me; but this feeling is mainly unconscious and remains unsupported by evidence, because I never found time to go looking.
For one thing, we all hear/see etc slightly differently from each other, simply because biology doesn't replicate humans so precisely that we all have the same senses or the same sensory-related genetic expression. Our lifestyles determine what sort of nutrition, sleep etc we each get and what sort of activities we do to sharpen or degrade our senses (eg, a hunter in a tribe doubtless has better sight and hearing than do I). So we are not all receiving 'the same' input.

A second thing, we do not all interpret the same input the same way, and emotional weighting is a big part of the enjoyment of music. Some of the pieces I love best are partly so loved because I've had some of my best experiences to them. Other pieces I used to love I now do not like. So appreciation of specifics is dynamic (at least for me. Appreciation of basics appears to be permanent at least for me, for over half a century. I don't like out of tune notes or 'sliding' notes, vocal and other harmony makes me happy, I don't feel comfortable with atonal.) I think you sussed this out in your experiment, finding those personal movie associations.

Association of any music with an unpleasant incident is obviously going to affect listening pleasure. Personal state of mind and of course anxieties also affect the perception of sounds in all of us. In depressed, anxious states we will not hear the same sound we hear when upbeat and happy.
Taking all this into account, I would not expect us to find the 'same sounds' pleasing, as we are not all perceiving the same sounds. I am interested in this research and hope I have time to keep up, I'll get back to it when I can.

...Since 'the majority of people' also list god, their country, and money in their top 5 most important things, why should we desire to emulate them? :  )  But I see what you mean; music can get us very high, and those nice feelings should not be missed.

On repairing or improving things: Starting at the bottom, assuming your actual ears are fine, it sounds like you've done a good job of exploring sound. I am wondering whether including network 3 more in the selection process might yield more specific results; for example do you know which particular pieces you like best of all? Is there any music that almost always helps you feel calmer? Is there any music which almost always helps you feel invigorated? Is there any music which can do both? Could you choose three sets of favorite lyrics that inspire you? Do you like to sing along to any of them?

Like drugs, if we use the same musical input all the time, our sensitivity downregulates; this is also what you discovered, so to use music effectively avoid excessive repetition.
Definitely don't 'force yourself' to do anything, but by all means mess around. Finding out whether you can replay a tune you know and then listening to the original can be informative. Obviously you can't play all the instruments from a band or orchestra, plus a vocal line, on one instrument; so what did you select to represent 'the main tune'? Think about how we use music and how it affects people. If you had to plan a track list for a party, what would you include?

I too consider a lot of 'music' comes in the 'noise' category, especially stuff played on radio which is constantly interrupted by djs and adverts, but on exploration I've found stuff I really like.
Finally, try dedicating a half hour to just listening -not trying to compute anything or do any experiments; just sitting with eyes closed and no distractions with some favorite music going on...and really...listen... it could be good to do this drunk or stoned, but not when you have to steer a bike  :  )  No making notes, just enjoy drifting along with the sound...
Enjoy,
AR
PS Re: “I move into bright areas slowly and cautiously, thereby preventing sneezing while allowing my eyes to adjust to the brighter conditions and then able to see potential threats.”
Some humans, and apparently some cats, get photosensitive sneezing if transferred suddenly into bright light, (which could explain why cats move much as you describe above!) A colleague has tried infra-red light up the nostrils before going out, and reckons it helps.

When I wrote “ If music appreciation is hard wired, then why don't all people from different cultures or even within the same culture all like the same music? “  (and yes, I meant societies)

I was attempting to reconcile what you said in your previous post.

Paraphrased,

“Consider -is 'feeling happy or sad' in itself calling up memories of previous states...... automatic emotional responses is hard wired in”

In this context, I made the assumption that you were stating there are hard coded pathways in the brain for MUSIC appreciation. Therefore I made the additional assumption that there must be a universal optimal base from which all people differentiate music from sound.

This shifts the original question. I now ask why Human culture would evolve music appreciation?

There are obvious evolutionary advantages to using tools, learning languages, and writing books.

Before writing books there was oral history, and I know some people can remember things better when put to song.... which begs the further question, why?

I easily remember lines from plays and movies, but not lyrics in songs. I think I get distracted by the words pronounced inaccurately to suit the rhythm.



  “ emotional weighting is a big part of the enjoyment of music. “ 

As I rarely included music as part of my life, then it’s to be expected that there would be little opportunity for association. I also spent much of my formative years in depressed anxious states, so that may also have coloured my perceptions of music. Anyone know at what age people’s musical ‘tastes’ are established? I mean general regional societal norms.

“ assuming your actual ears are fine” 
    I had an audiology test and was told I have excellent hearing for my age group. A minor dip in ~4kHz range, falling off at 16kHz. Of course this is excellent in comparison to the rest of the noise polluted industrial western nation.

"do you know which particular pieces you like best of all?" 
    I could pick one for today, but it would not be the same tomorrow... or even this afternoon.

"Is there any music that almost always helps you feel calmer?"
    When I want to listen to something to calm me, Ii have a meditation mp3 of gentle sounds, ocean waves, gulls etc.

"Is there any music which almost always helps you feel invigorated?" 
    Yes, at least a little. I have a playlist of these. The ones that come to mind right now are Ramin Djwadi’s theme from the movie Iron Man, Extreme Ways, by Mobi, Wake Up by Rage Against the Machine, Ride of the Valkyries,

"Is there any music which can do both?"
    ... I’ll think more on this... maybe “the Four Seasons “Spring”?

"Could you choose three sets of favorite lyrics that inspire you?"   
    This would be difficult to do. Just sorting through Rush lyrics would be hard to get down to 3.

"Do you like to sing along to any of them?"
    Not that I know of. I’ve not tried singing along. I would guess that if I liked to sing, I would have so no.

"Definitely don't 'force yourself' to do anything"
    Force wasn't the right word. I was thinking of Tutorial 5, where it’s mentioned the networks most in need of development are the ones where one will have the most difficulty. If there was just some hump to get over, then I’m willing to stick it out for a period of time if the outcome would be beneficial.

“ so what did you select to represent 'the main tune'? “ 
    when I was messing around, I noticed I would try to duplicate the vocal rhythm on whatever instrument I was playing.  Does this mean anything?

"Think about how we use music and how it affects people."
  **********I've spent the past year thinking about this very question, and i can not answer it other than it appears to be like a drug that causes people to experience emotional reactions.
   

"If you had to plan a track list for a party, what would you include?"
    This scenario would always present me with great anxiety. Originally, I never had any music to play when friends came over, so I’d ask them to bring along their favorite stuff. I’ve now got a collection, but for planning a track list, I would have an exceedingly difficult time knowing where to start except for some close friends whom i know their favorite bands.

I think I've done what I can for N1 so I'll take your advice and stop trying to analyse. Just let N3 play at it for a while. Anything else other than listening?

Thanks for the insights. Lots of stuff to ponder and see what gels.

Later
Robert