This media item is an excerpt about synaesthesia, a perceptual condition that affects roughly four percent of the population. There are twenty different types of synaesthesia and the most common form is seeing numbers or letters in colours. The subject in this video has two forms of synaesthesia in that he tastes food as colours and hears music as colours. The media item is from Discovery Channel's One Step Beyond, a program which explores interesting and uncommon phenomena, from life after death to cannibal crickets. It is a documentary/current affair style interview that explores the general background to synaesthesia, right through to the current research that is being explored in Dr David Eagleman's laboratory.

This excerpt is particularly interesting due to the fact that the phenomenon is reasonably common (the current estimate is 1 in 23) and because there are so many forms that the disorder can take. In addition, the subject Shaun Day has very interesting eating habits because of his condition. He complains that none of his friends will eat the food he has prepared, however who can blame them when it's chicken, ice cream, and orange sauce! He also sees spheres of colours in front of him when he eats or plays music, a sensation that some people abuse substances to achieve.

We chose this item as it is broadly related to areas we've already covered in the course, including Dr Ramachandran's research on phantom limbs and Sharma, Angelucci, and Sur's (2000) study concerning the cross-model plasticity of the somatosensory cortex. While there are considerable differences between the three areas of research, they all emphasise the amazing flexibility of the perceptual processes in the brain.