Questions
1. an investigation into synesthesia using modern medical technology
Select
A. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be given. Five, for example, for some people is green, while others say the sound of a guitar is like someone blowing on their ankles. People who 'see' colour in numbers or letters of the alphabet and 'feel' sensation in sound have synesthesia — meaning literally 'joined sensations' -- an extraordinary condition that causes certain senses to 'leak' into one another. B. People whose senses behave in this way are called 'synesthetes'. Some synesthetes take pleasure in it. Others learn to keep it a secret for fear of people laughing at them. But to neurologists investigating the brain it is of great interest. When scientists study normal perception,' says Daniel Smilek of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, 'there are lots of things we don't question because most of us perceive in the same way. ' C. As yet there is no explanation for any of this, but small pieces of the jigsaw are emerging. A brain scanning experiment by Baron-Cohen in 1995 found that when synesthetes were listening to words, areas of the brain lit up that are normally only active in response to vision and colour. From this comes the notion that we may all have synesthesia at birth, when many parts of the brain are linked, but, as we develop, connections are pruned, so our senses become separated and the synesthetic mechanism is no longer intact. Somehow, synesthetes have kept their synaptic connections intact. It's an idea that has been challenged, however, on the grounds that if you give people certain drugs, they will have synesthetic experiences, which suggests the mechanism is intact in adults but repressed. D. So which is it? At present, we don't know, but in the future neurologists may be able to explain what's going on in the brains of people like the novelist Nabokov, who perceived the English 'a' as dark brown and the French 'e' as black.
2. a mention of a writer who was a synesthete
Select
A. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be given. Five, for example, for some people is green, while others say the sound of a guitar is like someone blowing on their ankles. People who 'see' colour in numbers or letters of the alphabet and 'feel' sensation in sound have synesthesia — meaning literally 'joined sensations' -- an extraordinary condition that causes certain senses to 'leak' into one another. B. People whose senses behave in this way are called 'synesthetes'. Some synesthetes take pleasure in it. Others learn to keep it a secret for fear of people laughing at them. But to neurologists investigating the brain it is of great interest. When scientists study normal perception,' says Daniel Smilek of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, 'there are lots of things we don't question because most of us perceive in the same way. ' C. As yet there is no explanation for any of this, but small pieces of the jigsaw are emerging. A brain scanning experiment by Baron-Cohen in 1995 found that when synesthetes were listening to words, areas of the brain lit up that are normally only active in response to vision and colour. From this comes the notion that we may all have synesthesia at birth, when many parts of the brain are linked, but, as we develop, connections are pruned, so our senses become separated and the synesthetic mechanism is no longer intact. Somehow, synesthetes have kept their synaptic connections intact. It's an idea that has been challenged, however, on the grounds that if you give people certain drugs, they will have synesthetic experiences, which suggests the mechanism is intact in adults but repressed. D. So which is it? At present, we don't know, but in the future neurologists may be able to explain what's going on in the brains of people like the novelist Nabokov, who perceived the English 'a' as dark brown and the French 'e' as black.
3. a definition of synesthesia
Select
A. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be given. Five, for example, for some people is green, while others say the sound of a guitar is like someone blowing on their ankles. People who 'see' colour in numbers or letters of the alphabet and 'feel' sensation in sound have synesthesia — meaning literally 'joined sensations' -- an extraordinary condition that causes certain senses to 'leak' into one another. B. People whose senses behave in this way are called 'synesthetes'. Some synesthetes take pleasure in it. Others learn to keep it a secret for fear of people laughing at them. But to neurologists investigating the brain it is of great interest. When scientists study normal perception,' says Daniel Smilek of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, 'there are lots of things we don't question because most of us perceive in the same way. ' C. As yet there is no explanation for any of this, but small pieces of the jigsaw are emerging. A brain scanning experiment by Baron-Cohen in 1995 found that when synesthetes were listening to words, areas of the brain lit up that are normally only active in response to vision and colour. From this comes the notion that we may all have synesthesia at birth, when many parts of the brain are linked, but, as we develop, connections are pruned, so our senses become separated and the synesthetic mechanism is no longer intact. Somehow, synesthetes have kept their synaptic connections intact. It's an idea that has been challenged, however, on the grounds that if you give people certain drugs, they will have synesthetic experiences, which suggests the mechanism is intact in adults but repressed. D. So which is it? At present, we don't know, but in the future neurologists may be able to explain what's going on in the brains of people like the novelist Nabokov, who perceived the English 'a' as dark brown and the French 'e' as black.
4. two different explanations of why synesthesia is uncommon in adults
Select
A. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be given. Five, for example, for some people is green, while others say the sound of a guitar is like someone blowing on their ankles. People who 'see' colour in numbers or letters of the alphabet and 'feel' sensation in sound have synesthesia — meaning literally 'joined sensations' -- an extraordinary condition that causes certain senses to 'leak' into one another. B. People whose senses behave in this way are called 'synesthetes'. Some synesthetes take pleasure in it. Others learn to keep it a secret for fear of people laughing at them. But to neurologists investigating the brain it is of great interest. When scientists study normal perception,' says Daniel Smilek of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, 'there are lots of things we don't question because most of us perceive in the same way. ' C. As yet there is no explanation for any of this, but small pieces of the jigsaw are emerging. A brain scanning experiment by Baron-Cohen in 1995 found that when synesthetes were listening to words, areas of the brain lit up that are normally only active in response to vision and colour. From this comes the notion that we may all have synesthesia at birth, when many parts of the brain are linked, but, as we develop, connections are pruned, so our senses become separated and the synesthetic mechanism is no longer intact. Somehow, synesthetes have kept their synaptic connections intact. It's an idea that has been challenged, however, on the grounds that if you give people certain drugs, they will have synesthetic experiences, which suggests the mechanism is intact in adults but repressed. D. So which is it? At present, we don't know, but in the future neurologists may be able to explain what's going on in the brains of people like the novelist Nabokov, who perceived the English 'a' as dark brown and the French 'e' as black.
5. a reason why some synesthetes do not tell people about their experiences
Select
A. What is the colour of five? What is the sound of blue? To most of us such questions are either meaningless or suitable only for poetry. But for some people these are questions to which very precise answers can be given. Five, for example, for some people is green, while others say the sound of a guitar is like someone blowing on their ankles. People who 'see' colour in numbers or letters of the alphabet and 'feel' sensation in sound have synesthesia — meaning literally 'joined sensations' -- an extraordinary condition that causes certain senses to 'leak' into one another. B. People whose senses behave in this way are called 'synesthetes'. Some synesthetes take pleasure in it. Others learn to keep it a secret for fear of people laughing at them. But to neurologists investigating the brain it is of great interest. When scientists study normal perception,' says Daniel Smilek of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, 'there are lots of things we don't question because most of us perceive in the same way. ' C. As yet there is no explanation for any of this, but small pieces of the jigsaw are emerging. A brain scanning experiment by Baron-Cohen in 1995 found that when synesthetes were listening to words, areas of the brain lit up that are normally only active in response to vision and colour. From this comes the notion that we may all have synesthesia at birth, when many parts of the brain are linked, but, as we develop, connections are pruned, so our senses become separated and the synesthetic mechanism is no longer intact. Somehow, synesthetes have kept their synaptic connections intact. It's an idea that has been challenged, however, on the grounds that if you give people certain drugs, they will have synesthetic experiences, which suggests the mechanism is intact in adults but repressed. D. So which is it? At present, we don't know, but in the future neurologists may be able to explain what's going on in the brains of people like the novelist Nabokov, who perceived the English 'a' as dark brown and the French 'e' as black.
Submit Answers
Reset