intellectica 2011/1, n° 55

Synesthesia and Intermodality

Cultural Synaesthesia: Neuropsychological versus Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Intersensoriality

Abstract : Neuropsychological theories of synaesthesia treat the phenomenon of intersensoriality (hearing colours or seeing
sounds and other such forms of cross-modal stimulation) as a very rare genetic condition which has to do with the brains of
certain individuals being "cross-wired." Anthropological theories of synaesthesia interpret it as socially conditioned and
culturally inflected. Both the intersensory connections and the significance of synaesthesia can be shown to vary across
cultures. For example, some cultures privilege smell-hearing, others coloured hearing; some cultures place a premium on
the integration of the senses, others on the separation of the senses. It is argued that the neuropsychological theory of
synaesthesia needs to be radically rethought in light of all the anthropological evidence pointing to the historicity and cultural
specificity of the forms of intersensoriality.

Key words  : intersensoriality, smell-hearing, temperature-colour, colour-grapheme, sensory-social order, cosmology and psychology.