A Sense of Synesthesia; October 1997; Scientific American Magazine; by Gibbs; 1 Page(s)

You are coming into the CAVE," Rita Addison begins. She is describing a virtual environment that she created to help people feel what it is like to have one¿s senses crossed, a phenomenon doctors call synesthesia (also the name of Addison¿s project). Five years ago a car accident scrambled sensory pathways in Addison¿s brain. Her vision clouded; the world seemed to zoom in and out, to spin. "Smells, absent at first, returned distorted," she recalls. "Sound wasn¿t heard but felt, like a push into my skin. With aphasia and vocabulary loss, frustration mounted whenever I tried to use words to explain what my world was like." So Addison instead turned her artistic skills to high-tech.

"The CAVE at the San Diego Supercomputer Center is a nine-foot cube; the walls are rear-projected video screens," she continues. "You are wearing a pair of liquid-crystal-shuttered glasses and a tracking device on top of your head. You are also carrying a little wand as a navigation tool. You are attired with an instrument that measures your chest¿s movement as you breathe.