Note 101 — Chapter VI · SENSORY AUTOMATISM

For a true synæsthetic or "sound-seer,"—to take the commonest form of these central repercussions of sensory shock,—there is a connection between sight and sound which is instinctive, complex, and yet for our intelligence altogether arbitrary.

But sound-seeing is only a conspicuous example of synæsthesiæ which exist in as yet unexplored variety. When we find that there are gradated, peremptory, inexplicable associations connecting sensations of light and colour with sensations of temperature, smell, taste, muscular resistance, etc., we are led to conclude that we are dealing, not with the casual associations of childish experience, but with some reflection or irradiation of specialised sensations which must depend upon the connate structure of the brain itself.

This view is consistent with the results of an Enquête sur l'audition colorée recently conducted by Professor Flournoy, from which it appears that of 213 persons presenting these associations only 48 could assign the date of their origin; and is supported by a case described in the Revue de l'Hypnotisme, December 1892, p. 185, where a man who had long exhibited a limited form of audition colorée developed gustation colorée in addition when in a low state of health.

See also the "Report of the International Congress of Experimental Psychology, Second Session, London, 1892," pp. 10-20 (Williams & Norgate, London, 1892), and the American Journal of Psychology for April 1900 (vol. xi. pp. 377-404).