After watching the NOVA video on how our brains respond to magic tricks and how magic tricks work, I found it fascinating that even with the slightest movement to cause a distraction, our brains automatically follow it even though I kept telling myself to try and watch the other hand.  For me personally, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it even after a couple of times!  I could only imagine what the difficulties would be for someone on the autism spectrum must have when it comes to multiple stimuli in everyday lives that we have become so accustomed to sorting through and dealing with.  Just like at the end of the magic trick when the outcome is revealed (such as a dove flying out of a bouquet of flowers), a person on the autism spectrum is in this magical realm of surprise and impaired predictions for all of their life which leads them to be in a constant state of being overstimulated and shut off from the rest of the normally wired people.  I often wonder what kind of experiments would aid in the discovery of how autistic brains truly work, but unfortunately, this article from the LA Times just lead me to more questions about my own brain and how I would possibly differ from someone who has autism.  Perhaps someone on the autism spectrum doesn’t have the primal flight of fight instincts like I do, and can’t sense danger because of their “magical realm”?  Questions lead on to more questions!

In his Ted Talk titled “Different Ways of Knowing”, Daniel Tammet, explains how he perceives the world. He explains that in his mind, numbers and words have colors and shapes.

I think he made a very interesting statement at the beginning of his talk where he said, “our personal perceptions are at the heart of how we acquire knowledge”. I think this is very true. I think this could be connected to why certain things are encoded without effort or conscious awareness. Some things just naturally stand out to us and have a deeper meaning in our minds than others do. This could be due to the connections we make when we hear/see them. Tammet thinks of colors when he hears a word and while we may not see a color when we hear a word, we most likely think of something else that influences how we perceive that word.

Tammet also stated that poets play with our intuitive understanding of words and sounds. This also seems very true. This is why in English classes, we are asked to interpret literature. While the author may have been feeling and portraying their specific beliefs or emotions, each person can interpret a poem differently due to the unique way they perceive words.

In regards to his daily life, Tammet did express that he was a little annoyed by people asking him all kinds of bizarre questions. He did state, however, that life is much richer when experienced in colors and shapes. I think that someone with Synesthesia, may have a deeper appreciation for language and also mathematics. We do make connection when we hear words but our experience may not be as vivid. A drawback could be that a person with synthesia may be easily distracted. They may get caught up thinking about the visual experience when they heard a word or number and stop paying attention to the rest of the sentence. This may not be a big problem, however, and those with this condition most likely live a normal life filled with vivid colors, shapes, smells, and sounds.

Daniel Tammet’s Ted Talk about sensation and perception opened my eyes to see that there are many ways of taking in our surroundings. I have never heard the word “synesthesia” before but I found it fascinating how one factor can activate another in our brains. I have always thought that one thing can have many different meanings depending on a persons perception, and this was made clear to me by observing how Tammet was able to create abstract paintings from one simple number. I would have never imagined that a person could see color or emotion behind something so insignificant to me. The way he described a shape for each number made me realize that there is lots of things that I am missing out on because I do not take the time to place meaning behind them. It was also interesting how at first, when Tammet presented his three questions I was going about my normal learning techniques to figure out the answer. After listening and seeing how synesthesia works, I was able to compute the answer to the questions in a way that strongly deviates from my normal day to day thinking process. I was fascinated how a 10 minute TED talk was able to impact for an instance the way I was processing information. I think that people who learn through this process have a highly more “active” or in a sense more vivid perception of their surroundings. Being able to make connections between things in our world makes them have more meaning ;therefore, allowing us to place more value to those things. Sometimes I go through my day thinking how boring it all has been, but if I were to see color behind numbers, to place emotion behind words, I would definitely take in more about the world around me than I usually do.

Everyone has different perceptions of how people see the world in their own way. Some people have the skills to use multiple senses to understand something.In TED talks Daniel Tammet explains how he uses synesthesia. Synesthesia is the production of a sense being stimulated by another sense causing multiple functions to help understand what is happening in a situation.For example,  when a person is blind they use their touch and hearing senses to be able to walk around in the environment or a person could combine  numbers with colors to understand what they see.I thought synesthesia was some kind of disease before I saw TED talks but its just a condition of how people see life in their own way.

Synesthesia is a condition not everyone has but there are people in this world who do have it. I didn’t know about synesthesia or what it was until I watched the video which provided me with information explaining how the perception of human beings is different. I believe that people dealing with this condition can understand what others don’t. They can see things that other people don’t see because of synesthesia but if the person doesn’t understand what is happening he or she could be dealing with difficulties to understand.Perception is the way we see the world and how we understand it.

Do you have any idea what synesthesia is? Synesthesia is a condition that many people have that occurs when one sense, such as sound, triggers another sense, like taste, at the same time. People with this condition view and learn things differently than other people who do not have it. Today, I watched a TED Talk titled “Different Ways of Knowing” in which Daniel Tammet, an author, talks about his experience of synesthesia; as well as how he and other individuals with synesthesia may sense and perceive different sensations in certain situations. Daniel Tammet mainly discussed how he personally visualizes, learns, and perceives some images, writings, and problems; however, all people with synesthesia are not affected the same way. By this I mean, when one sense such as sound is triggered for two different people with synesthesia, one person’s sense of taste may be triggered, while the other person’s sense of smell may be triggered instead.

I have heard of synesthesia once before, but it was not explained as in depth as it was in this video. This TED Talk enlightened and confused me. This video enlightened me because I now have a better understanding of individuals who have synesthesia than I did before.  This video confused me because Daniel Tammet clarified how he saw and understood things, but even afterwards it still sounds complicated to me.

Before today, I thought synesthesia would make day to day life more complicated, but after watching this entire video, it makes me think that day to day life would not be as hard as I make it out to be. I am pretty sure there would still be some obstacles because people with synesthesia still view and perceive things differently than the majority of the people in the world; however, those people still work, do the same the tasks, and live life like every other person.