The Man Who Tasted Shapes, revised edition (Bradford Books) - Softcover

Cytowic, Richard E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262532557 ISBN 13: 9780262532556

Publisher: Bradford Books, 2003

Synopsis

In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, or "joined sensation," illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what it means to be human.

Richard Cytowic's dinner host apologized, "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" He felt flavor also as a physical shape in his hands, and the chicken had come out "too round." This offbeat comment in 1980 launched Cytowic's exploration into the oddity called synesthesia. He is one of the few world authorities on the subject. Sharing a root with anesthesia ("no sensation"), synesthesia means "joined sensation," whereby a voice, for example, is not only heard but also seen, felt, or tasted. The trait is involuntary, hereditary, and fairly common. It stayed a scientific mystery for two centuries until Cytowic's original experiments led to a neurological explanation―and to a new concept of brain organization that accentuates emotion over reason. That chicken dinner two decades ago led Cytowic to explore a deeper reality that, he argues, exists in everyone but is often just below the surface of awareness (which is why finding meaning in our lives can be elusive). In this medical detective adventure, Cytowic shows how synesthesia, far from being a mere curiosity, illuminates a wide swath of mental life and leads to a new view of what is means to be human―a view that turns upside down conventional ideas about reason, emotional knowledge, and self-understanding. This 2003 edition features a new afterword.

About this title

From the Publisher:

The Man Who Tasted Shapes brings us the solution to a bizarre medical mystery, and leads us to a new understanding of the human mind that turns our conventional notions about reason and emotion inside out.

From the Author:

I wrote the first English textbook on this fascinating merging of the senses in 1989. I'm happy to offer a less technical version to general readers in The Man Who Tasted Shapes, an account of my accidental meeting with Michael Watson that re-introduced today's neurologists to the ancient and puzzling phenomenon of synesthesia. In the ensuing years, scientists worldwide have begun exploring what this exceptional condition can reveal about how all human minds function.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bradford Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0262532557
• ISBN 13: 9780262532556
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296