Tina Tang的部落格

Oral Report

Unit 5  Great Minds

Synesthesia (n.) 共感症

definition: 

1. a.      a concomitant sensation; especially :  a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated
2. b.      the condition marked by the experience of such sensations

syn- à together

synesthesia

synonymous

synaeresis

Let’s turn to page 87. I would like to tell you the third examples of synesthesia, the topic is “Not Enough Points on the Chicken”. The person who had synesthesia named Michael, but he didn’t know anything about it even the relationship between his sense, taste the shape. One day, Michael invited his neurological fried for dinner. Michael’s friend found something special of Michael’s house. Why it’s special? Look at first paragraph, line 2. “the unusual layout of his home.” “His house had no inside walls. Its “rooms” flowed into one another…”

Look at line 10. “while Michael stirred the sauce he had made for the roast chicken.” And Michael said, “there aren’t enough points on the chicken.” We can see that he can taste the shape from line 11, the sentence at right side.

On line 20. “Flavor has shape.” “I wanted the taste of this chicken to be a

pointed shape.” Michael tried to turn round “taste” into pointed “taste”.

Then, turn to page 88, look at line 35. “When I taste something with an intense flavor, the feeling sweeps down my arm into my fingers…” “feel it like I’m actually grasping something.” Michael is not just imagining the flavor and illustrate it, it is his true feeling, he really feels the shape.

As I mentioned at first, Michael’s unique rooms has something in common

with his brain. Just as there were no walls between the rooms of his house, I knew that Michael had no walls between his senses. Just as his rooms flowed into each other, so too taste, touch, movement, and color flowed together in his brain.