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Preface
Roland Posner and Dagmar Schmauks
Synesthesia: physiological diagnosis, perception practices and art program 

Stephanie Kneip and Jörg Jewanski
Synesthetic perception from a neurological perspective

Hinderk M. Emrich, Markus Zedler and Udo Schneider
Binding and hyperbinding in intermodal perception and synesthesia

Jörg Jewanski
Colored notes: synesthesia and music

William H. Edmondson
Colored letters: synesthesia and language

Enclosure 
Sabine Schneider 
"All things have colors": synesthetes in the "Story-Tellers’ Café"

Eva Kimminich
Synesthesia and incorporealization of perception: comments on a historical development in Europe between 17th and 20th century

Literary report 
Martin Vetter
Theology and semiotics:
an insight into the current dialogue using the example of Peirce's work applied to recent protestant theological publications

Obituary 
Jeff Bernard
In memory of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001) 

Preface
Synesthesia: physiological diagnosis, perception 
practices and art program 

Roland Posner and Dagmar Schmauks, Technical University Berlin

Summary. This introductory article starts by pointing out the two readings of the term "synesthesia" as a designation of a physiological diagnosis and as an art program. 
Based on the observation that a remarkable number of physiologically caused 
synesthesias are tied to the perception of coded signs, the sign-theoretic status of the
perceived objects which trigger synesthetic sensations is investigated. As a result, a 
semiotic classification of synesthesias into stimulus-based, signifier-based, 
signified-based, and referent-based synesthesia is proposed. In characterizing the 
other contributions to this journal issue the article elaborates further on the distinction 
between constitutional synesthesia and synesthesia conceived as a process of 
reception in art: in a constitutional synesthete, a perception involuntarily triggers a real 
sensation in one or more additional channels of perception; in a synesthetic art 
recipient, an aesthetic perception only evokes an idea of such a sensation. Synesthetic
art reception thus transpires as an intellectualized parallel of a physiological process.
 

Synesthetic perception from a neurological 
perspective 

Stefanie Kneip, University of Cologne,
and Jörg Jewanski, Münster College of Music 

Summary. This article outlines the history of research in synesthesia, gives an analysis 
of its pathogenesis, and describes problems connected with its diagnosis and 
classification. After a definition of synesthesia, the status of synesthetic signs is 
discussed from a semiotic perspectve. It is asked which consequences this rare and 
unusual form of perception has on the personality and cognitive performance of the 
persons affected. Criteria for the occurrence of synesthesia are described and its 
various forms of occurrence are characterised. The article closes with a presentation 
of current neurological hypotheses regarding the origin of synesthesia.
 

Binding and hyperbinding in intermodal perception
and synesthesia

Hinderk M. Emrich, Markus Zedler and Udo Schneider
Hannover Medical School, Department of Clinical  Psychiatry 
and Psychotherapy

Summary. When humans perceive an object, their perceptory organs transform the
properties of the object into percepts of different modalities, which are then related 
with one another in such a way that the object appears as a unified entity in 
consciousness. This neurobiological process, which is still largely unknown, is called 
"binding". When during the perception process a given percept is combined with an 
additional percept which arises in a different modality without being directly based 
on a property of the perceived object, one speaks of "synesthesia". In coloured 
hearing, e.g., acoustic properties of an object are simultaneously perceived visually.
This process is called "hyperbinding". The present article argues that binding and 
hyperbinding have the same neurophysiological basis. The utilization of the process
configuration characteristic for hyperbinding as a research model for the investigation 
of binding is proposed. 
 

Colored notes: synesthesia and music 

Jörg Jewanski, Detmold, College of Music, Münster Department 

Summary. This article discusses the role of synesthesia in the composition, 
performance, and understanding of music. The author begins by assessing early 
claims of correspondences between sound and color (from the 16th to the 19th 
century) and comes to the conclusion that the assumption made in the literature
that many of the authors involved possessed synesthetic capabilities must be 
revised. Next, the changing attitudes towards synesthesia as a pathological 
phenomenon (second half of the 19th century) and as a creative potential (beginning
of the 20th century) are described with respect to the consequences they had for the
arts and sciences. Case studies of four twentieth century composers (Alexander 
Scrjabin, Alexander László, Olivier Messiaen, and Michael Denhoff) demonstrate 
that the relationship between synesthesia and music is as varied as the individual 
forms of synesthesia itself. The assumption that these four composers were, in the
strict sense, capable of synesthesia is called into question. 
 

Colored letters: synesthesia and language

William H. Edmondson, University of  Birmingham

Summary. This article, written by a synesthete, describes the experiences of a 
person whose perception of every alphabetic character is automatically connected 
with the impression of seeing a specific colored aura around it. Comparing his 
experiences with those reported by other synesthetes and by non-synesthetes,
the author raises the questions of intersubjectivity in perception and of objectivity of communication. He discusses the widely used model of communication which 
presupposes an exchange of messages formulated and understood on the basis of a
code shared by the communication partners and argues that this model fails to explain
the fact that understanding is possible even among persons who do not share a code. 
He proposes to replace the message model of verbal communication by an approach 
based on habits of sequencing and contextualizing one’s perceptions, communicative 
as well as non-communicative ones. Edmondson’s conjecture allows for varying 
degrees of idiosyncracy in the perception of verbal signs and is thus able to provide 
theoretically based places in communicative cooperation for synesthetic as well as 
for non-synesthetic language users.
 

Enclosure

"All things have colors": synesthetes in the 
"Story-Tellers’ Café"

Sabine Schneider, University of Leipzig

Summary. The author – herself a synesthete – first describes which signs in her own 
biography made her discover that her perceptions are much more colorful than those 
of others. She tries to make clear to non-synesthetes how her specific synesthesia 
functions: she perceives colors in connection with visual signs such as letters and 
numerals, but also with music and other acoustic impressions. She points out how these
additional perceptions can be helpful or obstructive in everyday life and learning. Finally, 
the „Story-Tellers’ Café“ in Leipzig is presented which offers synesthetes the 
opportunity to exchange experiences and to make themselves more comprehensible for non-synesthetes.
 

Synesthesia and incorporealization of perception: comments on a historical development in Europe between 17th and 20th century 

Eva Kimminich, University of Freiburg im Breisgau

Summary. The history of concepts shows that synesthesia was introduced to scientific 
research only during the 19th century: as an abnormal interchange of physiologically 
separated processes on the one hand and as an artistic technique on the other. This 
definition prompted the author to examine synesthesia within the context of the 
Western history of human perceptional conventions. Her review of philosophical, 
theological, medical and physiological explanations shows how physical sensitivity 
became separated from mental perception. Simultaneously, but especially since the 
18th century, mediological, technical and technological developments provided 
possibilities for reinforcement and substitution of our senses. Synesthetic perception,
originally assigned to the soul or the human ego, developed into an oddity and was 
expelled to the realm of poetical games. Against this background the somatic turn of postmodernism appears in a different light. It allows a basic human right, almost 
forgotten and partly deliberately excluded, to move to the center of our attention: the 
right to develop a personality in line with the biological facts of our species. The 
conditions necessary for this must, however, be provided again in a process of 
Re-Sensibilization.
 

Literary report 

Theology and semiotics:
an insight into the current dialogue using the 
example of Peirce's work applied to recent 
protestant theological publications

Martin Vetter, Humboldt University Berlin

Summary. This paper outlines selected recent publications which apply the semiotics
of Charles S. Peirce from a theological perspective, and thus provides an insight into 
the current dialogue between theology and semiotics. The focus is placed on the 
triadicity of the sign concept and on the attempt to describe reality as a sign process. 
The question whether the transcendental ground of human sign production can be 
explained by means of semiotics remains theologically controversial.