Reading Practice
Synaesthesia
A
Imagine a page with a square box in the middle. The box is lined with rows of the number
5, repeated over and over. All of the 5s are identical in size, font and colour, and equally
distributed across the box. There is, however, a trick: among those 5s, hiding in plain sight
is a single, capital letter S. Almost the same in shape, it is impossible to spot without
straining your eyes for a good few minutes. Unless that is, you are a grapheme – colour
synaesthete – a person who sees each letter and number in dierent colours. With all the 5s
painted in one colour and the rogue S painted in another, a grapheme – colour synaesthete
will usually only need a split second to identify the latter.
B
Synaesthesia, loosely translated as “senses coming together” from the Greek words syn
(“with”) and aesthesis (“sensation”), is an interesting neurological phenomenon that causes
dierent senses to be combined. This might mean that words have a particular taste (for
example, the word “door” might taste like bacon), or that certain smells produce a particular
colour. It might also mean that each letter and number has its own personality-the letter A
might be perky, the letter B might be shy and self-conscious, etc. Some synaesthetes might
even experience other people’s sensations, for example feeling pain in their chest when
they witness a film character gets shot. The possibilities are endless: even though
synaesthesia is believed to aect less than 5% of the general population, at least 60 dierent
combinations of senses have been reported so far. What all these sensory associations
have in common is that they are all involuntary and impossible to repress and that they
usually remain quite stable over time.
C
Synaesthesia was first documented in the early 19th century by German physician Georg
Sachs, who dedicated two pages of his dissertation on his own experience with the
condition. It wasn’t, however, until the mid-1990s that empirical research proved its
existence when Professor Simon Baron-Cohen and his colleagues used fMRls on six
synaesthetes and discovered that the parts of the brain associated with vision were active
during auditory stimulation, even though the subjects were blindfolded.
D
What makes synaesthesia a particularly interesting condition is that it isn’t an illness at all.
If anything, synaesthetes often report feeling sorry for the rest of the population, as they
don’t have the opportunity to experience the world in a multisensory fashion like they do.
Very few drawbacks have been described, usually minimal: for instance, some words might
have an unpleasant taste (imagine the word “hello” tasting like spoilt milk), while some
synaesthetes find it distressing when they encounter people with names which don’t reflect
their personality (imagine meeting a very interesting person named “Lee”, when the letter E
has a dull or hideous colour for you-or vice versa). Overall, however, synaesthesia is widely
considered more of a blessing than a curse and it is often linked to intelligence and
creativity, with celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Pharrell Williams claiming to have it.
E
Another fascinating side of synaesthesia is the way it could potentially benefit future
generations. In a 2013 study, Dr Witthof and Dr Winawer discovered that grapheme-colour
synaesthetes who had never met each other before experienced strikingly similar pairings
between graphemes and colours-pairings which were later traced back to a popular set of
Fischer-Price magnets that ten out of eleven participants distinctly remembered possessing
as children. This was particularly peculiar as synaesthesia is predominantly considered to
be a hereditary condition, and the findings suggested that a synaesthete’s environment
might play a determining role in establishing synaesthetic associations. If that was true,
researchers asked, then might it not be possible that synaesthesia can actually be taught?
F
As it turns out, the benefits of teaching synaesthesia would be tremendous. According to
research conducted by Dr Clare Jonas at the University of East London, teaching people to
create grapheme-colour associations the same way as a synaesthete may have the
possibility to improve cognitive function and memory. As she put it, ‘one possibility is
guarding against cognitive decline in older people-using synaesthesia in the creation of
mnemonics to remember things such as shopping lists.’ To that end, researchers in the
Netherlands have already begun developing a web browser plug-in that will change the
colours of certain letters. Rothen and his colleagues corroborate the theory: in a paper
published in 2011, they suggest that synaesthesia might be more than a hereditary
condition, as the non-synaesthetic subjects of their study were able to mimic synaesthetic
associations long after leaving the lab.
G
There is obviously still a long way to go before we can fully understand synaesthesia and
what causes it. Once we do, however, it might not be too long before we find out how to
teach non-synaesthetes how to imitate its symptoms in a way that induces the same
benefits 4.4% of the world’s population currently enjoy.
Questions 1-7
he reading passage has 7 paragraphs, A-G.
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G, in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
1..................... some of the disadvantages related to synaesthesia
2..................... what scientists think about synaesthesia’s real-life usefulness
3..................... a prediction for the future of synaesthesia
4..................... an example of how grapheme-colour synaesthesia works
5..................... a brief history of synaesthesia
6..................... some of the various different types of synaesthesia
7..................... information about a study that suggests synaesthetic symptoms aren’t
arbitrary
Questions 8-11
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage
FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage
8..................... There are 60 different types of synaesthesia.
9..................... Before Professor Simon Baron-Cohen’s research, synaesthesia was
thought to be a myth.
10..................... A lot of celebrities are aected by synaesthesia.
11..................... Most scientists believe that synaesthesia runs in families.
Questions 12-14
Complete the summary.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 12-14 on your answer sheet
Access http://mini-ielts.com for more practices 3
Synaesthesia is a unique neurological condition that causes different senses to get mixed.
Recent research has suggested that teaching synaesthesia to non-synaesthetes can
enhance 12..................... and guard against the deterioration of cognitive 13.....................;
unfortunately, it might be a while before we come up with a beneficial way to
14..................... it to the general population.
Solution:
1. D 8. FALSE
2. F 9. NOT GIVEN
3. G 10. NOT GIVEN
4. A 11. TRUE
5. C 12. memory
6. B 13. function
7. E 14. teach
PASSWORD: 8MAY2025
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