When Julian Asher hears a violin, he sees red wine. However,
this Imperial College London professor isn’t crazy: One out of
every thousand people is said to experience this neurological
condition called synesthesia. It causes two senses to blend
together, so that stimulation of one sense triggers an entirely
different one, involuntarily and simultaneously. Here’s a theory
on how it works: When one region of a person’s brain talks with
another region that is wired to perceive a certain sense, the
pathways cross and allow the person to experience “crossed
senses.” Synesthesia is different for everyone who has it— some
people claim they can smell a sound, while others hear a color,
and some can even “taste” words. The latest research on the
topic has come out of Oxford University, where scientists found
that people hear low-pitched sounds when they see large, round
images. Experimental psychologist Charles Spence asked twelve
“non-synesthetes” if they could identify whether an image or
tone came first, in order