WHAT is the sound of dots moving? Most can’t say, but for those with a newly identified form of synaesthesia, “hearing” sights is the most natural thing in the world – and may make it easier for synaesthetes to recognise visual patterns.
Melissa Saenz at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena was tipped off when a grad student saw her screensaver and asked: “Does anyone else hear that?” His experience had the hallmarks of synaesthesia, in which stimulation of one sensory pathway creates an experience in another. When Saenz circulated the “noisy” image via email, three more synaesthetes came forward.…
