rhody said:
You are a master at that so I am sure there will be some interesting exchanges. I have a friend at work whose stepson may have it (synesthesia) as well. He is forwarding the link to his step Dad. Hopefully it will prove useful and interesting to him and his stepson. Only time will tell. Later.
Hmmmm...well, the caretaker showed up with the autistic woman and another mutual friend at the cafe. They were 2.5 hours late. They didn't mention why, but I think there was a reason for it.
The woman was much older than I anticipated, in her early 60's I'd say. I'd gage she had the I.Q. of a 6 or 7 year old. She was exceptionally friendly and open to me from the get go. No hint of shyness around a stranger. I got everyone situated at my table and asked who wanted to draw. The caretaker had claimed the autistic woman had savant skills as an artist and I wanted to see that. I gave her paper and pencils. The resulting drawing was...ah...not the work of a savant. It was a rendering of the military base where she'd spent some of her childhood, and was about the level of a ten year old with no special skills. I had previously specifically asked the caretaker if the autistic woman's art was any good and she'd assured me "Oh, yeah! It's really good!"
Her caretaker volunteered a list of the woman's synesthetic responses to notes of the scale to me, saying "Here's a list of the colors she told me she sees." The list was hinkey. Only the major notes from C to B, no sharps or flats. The colors were all basic colors: red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange, etc, not the delicate shades you usually see in these lists. I asked her what color she saw when she heard F#. She said "Purple", which was the same color that was on her list for F.
I asked the woman, "Say, do you have perfect pitch?" and she said "Yeah." I pulled out a little electronic keyboard I'd brought especially to test her and played a note. "What note is that?" I asked. She hesitated. I played it again several times. She said "I don't know." Scratch perfect pitch. I played the note again, "What color does it make you see?" She says "Red." Then she added "Green", then she added "Purple". And went through a whole bunch more colors. I tried a different note. She said, "I don't know." Scratch synesthesia.
The caretaker was getting red in the face. She asked, irritatedly "Do you always carry that thing with you?, meaning the keyboard. I said no, I'd brought it specifically for the occasion.
So, I think what happened was that the caretaker, in previous conversations, had grossly inflated her descriptions of the autistic woman's abilities, just cause she knew I liked neurological prodigies. I have the feeling they were late because they were trying to figure a way of compiling the list of synesthetic correlates. I imagine they were asking the autistic woman questions like "What color do you suppose goes with C? Do you think it might be Red?" To which the woman would agree, thinking they were playing some sort of game. Once they had the list I imagine they got her to memorize it, thinking I would only ask her "What color does D make you see?" to which she would reply with the preset answer.
It's hard to say for sure. The autistic woman, herself, was unintentionally misleading, like when I asked her if she had perfect pitch. I have no idea why she said "Yeah", so quickly and confidently, she didn't seem to know what perfect pitch was when it came down to it. I guess it was like Rainman when the Doc asked him how much a candy bar cost: "About a hundred dollars." And then how much a car cost: "About a hundred dollars." Ask them the wrong kind of question and they'll confabulate an answer. Or, in their mind, they think they understood what you asked. Hard to say.
The autistic woman had a fun time drawing, anyway. Once she got hold of the pencil sharpener she got fixated on it, and sharpened about 20 pencils nearly to oblivion. I had to remind her to get back to her drawing to save my Prismacolors.
It makes me think that all reports of autistic synesthetes may have to be doubly scrutinized, at least twice, and a few more times for good measure. Unlike 'normies' an autistic person could remember a list of musical note -> color corespondents forever and never make a mistake when tested years later, just because their memories are so good. Directly asking them if they feel shapes in response to taste, for example, might get a "yes" answer, even if they really have no idea what you're talking about.
) develops because there's so much that one knows, and so little time to TELL YOU EVERYTHING THAT I KNOW. AND I MEAN EVERYTHING.
yesterday ? I was in SD in the early 80's and we had one in the high 5 low 6 range. It sounded like a freight train and the whole building swayed, and small hairline cracks appeared in some walls, small cracks in the freeway in the hills near LaJolla. If you were outdoors, I have been told that animals can get really quiet just before, or suddenly act crazy in groups (quorum sensing, hehe).
