Current Biology

Vol 18 No 15R650

All our o the synesthete subjects(S1–S4, ages 23–33, 1 woman) hadnormal visual acuity and no knownhearing or neurological decits. Theirvisually-induced sound perceptionsoccur automatically, cannot be turnedo, and have been experienced oras long as they can remember goingback into childhood. The percepts aretypically simple, non-linguistic sounds(such as beeping, tapping or whirring)that are temporally associated withvisual fashes or continuous visualmotion. Eye movements over astationary scene (retinal motion) donot typically evoke sound. In dailyexperience, all our subjects aregenerally able to distinguish theirsynesthetic sound percepts rompercepts induced by real auditorystimuli, but occasional conusionexists. We reer to this phenomenonas ‘hearing-motion’ synesthesia, eventhough non-moving visual fashesalso trigger sound perception asdemonstrated next.Our goal was to devise a task orwhich hearing-motion synesthesiawould coner a perormance

advantage

, as this would bestrong objective evidence or theperceptual experience[4]. Typically (in non-synesthetes), people have anadvantage in judging rhythmic patternso sound compared to equivalentvisual rhythmic patterns[7,8]. We thus predicted that synesthetes wouldperorm

better

than controls in a taskinvolving visual rhythmic sequencesbecause synesthetes would not onlysee, but also hear the patterns.

The sound ochange: visually-induced auditorysynesthesia

Melissa Saenz and Christo Koch

Synesthesia is a benign neurologicalcondition in humans characterizedby involuntary cross-activation othe senses, and estimated to aectat least 1% o the population[1]. Multiple orms o synesthesia exist,including distinct visual, tactile orgustatory perceptions which areautomatically triggered by a stimuluswith dierent sensory properties[1–6], such as seeing colors when hearingmusic. Surprisingly, there has beenno previous report o synestheticsound perception. Here we report thatauditory synesthesia does indeed existwith evidence rom our healthy adultsor whom seeing visual fashes orvisual motion automatically causes theperception o sound. As an objectivetest, we show that ‘hearing-motionsynesthetes’ outperormed normalcontrol subjects on an otherwisedicult visual task involving rhythmictemporal patterns similar to Morsecode. Synesthetes had an advantagebecause they not could not only see,but also hear the rhythmic visualpatterns. Hearing-motion synesthesiacould be a useul tool or studying howthe auditory and visual processingsystems interact in the brain.

Sample ‘same’trial:interval 1:interval 2:Sample ‘different’trial:Sample rhythmic sequence composed of flashes or beeps:20050100Time (ms)interval 1:interval 2:p< 0.0001

N.S.

Controls(n=10)

Synesthetes(

n=4

)

1009080706050

% c o r r e c t

SoundVisionCurrent Biology

Figure 1. Visually-induced auditory synesthesia.(A) Sequences were composed o intermixed long (200 ms) and short (50 ms) duration stimuliseparated by blank intervals (100 ms) similar to Morse code (bars depict stimulus on-times). Thestimuli were either tonal beeps (360 Hz) on sound trials or centrally fashed discs (1.5 deg radius)on visual trials. On each trial, subjects judged whether two successive sequences (either bothsound or both visual) were the ‘same’ or ‘dierent’. (B) Mean perormance (% correct trials) orcontrol and synesthete subjects (+/− SEM). All subjects had good accuracy on sound trials, butsynesthetes dramatically outperormed controls on the otherwise dicult visual trials. Movies osample trials located online at http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~saenz/hearing-motion.html.

thereore emerges whereby one othe key unctions o the intact basalganglia is to link positive outcomesto subsequent behaviour, whetherpredominantly cognitive or motorin its demands, and to modiy thisrelationship accordingto motivational state.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data are available athttp:// www.current-biology.com/cgi/content/ ull/18/15/R648/DC1

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the MedicalResearch Council, Welcome Trust, FWO- Vlaanderen and Strategisch Basisonderzoek.

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Department o Neurology and

Departmento Neurosurgery, Charité-University MedicineBerlin, CVK, Berlin, Germany.

SobellDepartment o Motor Neuroscience andMovement Disorders, Institute o Neurology,London, UK.

Department o Neurosurgery,Kings College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London,UK.

Department o Physiology, Anatomy andGenetics and

Department o NeurologicalSurgery, Radclie Inrmary, Oxord, UK.

Department o Neurology and

Neurosurgery,Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.E-mail:p.brown@ion.ucl.ac.uk