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Have you ever tasted the color yellow? Or does your favorite poem evoke a distinctive smell?
你尝过黄色的味道吗？或者你最喜欢的诗会散发特有的气味吗？
Then you, my friend, may have synesthesia.
那么你，我的朋友，可能有联觉。
Synesthesia is an automatic linking of senses, where stimulation of one sense causes you to perceive another.
联觉是感觉的一种自动连接，通过刺激一种感觉会让人感知另一种感觉。
Someone with sound-color synesthesia, for example, might hear their favorite song and think,
例如，一个有声音——颜色联觉的人，听到最喜欢的歌可能会想到，
"The greens and reds in that chorus, man! Let me tell ya…"
“那合唱里的绿色和红色，伙计！让我告诉你……”
It's basically a weird brain superpower on its own.
它本身就是一个奇怪的超级大脑。
And, turns out, people with synesthesia might even have a slightly better memory when it comes to certain things.
事实证明，有联觉的人在某些事情的记忆上甚至可能更好。
About 2 to 4 percent of people have at least one subtype of synesthesia.
2%到4%左右的人至少有一种亚型联觉。
Some might see colors in songs, while others taste numbers.
一些人可能会在歌曲中看到颜色，而另一些人可能会尝到数字的味道。
Someone could even perceive time as a sort of spatial calendar that wraps around them.
有人甚至可以将时间视为一种四周围绕的空间日历。
A synesthetic brain makes these associations between senses while you're already using one of them.
当使用其中一种感官时，联觉大脑会在这些感官之间产生这些联系。
So it's not the same as a hallucination, like hearing voices without any sort of stimulus.
所以它与幻觉不同，就像听到没有刺激的声音一样。
A 2011 review of the literature suggests that some people are genetically predisposed towards developing a subtype of synesthesia,
2011年的一篇文献综述表明， 某些人有亚型联觉的遗传倾向，
thanks to the way their brains develop. The exact processes and brain areas responsible for synesthesia are still under debate,
这得感谢他们大脑发育的方式。有关联觉的确切过程和大脑区域仍存在争议，
but we do know that synesthetic brains show more connectivity.
但我们知道联觉大脑显示出更多的连通性。
Your brain has chunks of of gray matter, which is mostly neuron cell bodies and other brain cells,
大脑有大量的灰质，这些灰质大部分是神经元细胞和其他脑细胞，
and white matter tracts, which are like the wire parts of neurons that carry information between more distant brain regions.
白质束就像神经元的电线一样，在更远的大脑区域之间传递信息。
Those white matter tracts tend to be more developed in synesthetes, especially between sensory areas.
联觉人的白质束往往更发达，尤其是在各个感区之间。
Many researchers think this could be because of a failure in a developmental process called synaptic pruning.
许多研究人员认为这可能是由于突触剪枝发育过程出现故障。
Synaptic pruning is pretty much what it sounds like. Imagine your brain taking a pair of gardening shears to the cell connections
突触剪枝就是字面上的意思，想象大脑拿着一把园艺剪刀去连接细胞，
that are aren't really needed to keep everything working.
人们并不需要这些细胞来维持正常工作
Typically, as you grow up, some white matter connections get pruned back and honed into certain paths.
通常，随着人长大，一些白质连接会被修剪并打磨成特定的路径。
Your brain is trying to optimize efficiency and get rid of connections that you don't use to save energy.
你的大脑正试图优化效率，除掉那些不被用来储存能量的连接。
It's possible that in synesthesia, this pruning doesn't happen as effectively.
在连感中，这种修剪并不会发生
This could leave all sorts of unexpected connections between brain cells intact.
可能会使脑细胞之间各种意想不到的连接保持完整。
And as a result, the sensory regions of your brain may mingle with each other more than they should.
因此，大脑的感觉区域可能会尽可能相互干扰。
Another hypothesis has to do with how your brain regulates when and how your neurons talk to each other.
另一个假设与大脑调节神经元何时以及如何相互交流的方式有关。
In people without synesthesia, when you perceive something with one sense,
没有联觉的人用一种感觉感知事物时，
you just perceive that sense because neurons leading to other sensory regions are inhibited with some sort of chemical or physical barrier.
只是感知到感觉，因为通向其他感觉区域的神经元受到某种化学或物理障碍的抑制。
And in synesthetic brains, those kinds of barriers might not function as well or in the same ways.
在联觉大脑中，这些障碍可能不会起作用或者以相同的方式起作用。
So certain kinds of stimulation might leak over into other sensory pathways,
某些刺激可能会渗透至其他感觉路径，
like activating smell which should have no business in perceiving the song you're listening to.
就像激活的气味一样，无法察觉你正在听的歌。
But all this talk of 'failure of certain processes and systems' almost makes it seem like synesthesia is an illness, but that's not the case!
但是所有这些关于“某些流程和系统故障”的讨论几乎让人认为联觉是一种病，但事实并非如此!
Some people have even noticed that certain synesthetic associations can help them perform better on memory tests.
有些人甚至注意到某些联觉联系可以帮助他们在记忆测试中表现得更好。
In 2013, researchers conducted a memory experiment with a group of 28 color-letter synesthetes and 35 control subjects.
2013年，研究人员对一组28名颜色—字母联觉者和35个对照组进行了记忆实验。
First, they showed the participants a bunch of words, landscape pictures, and fractal patterns.
首先，他们向参与者展示了一些单词、风景画和分形图。
Then, the researchers showed pairs of things the subjects had seen before and similar-looking words and images,
然后，研究人员向受试者展示了他们过去见过的成对的事物以及类似的词语和图像，
and had people pick the one they recognize. Like, a pair of words would be: FISH and FIST.
让其选择认识的，就像，一组单词：鱼和拳头。
They found that the color-letter synesthetes were significantly better at remembering things in all of these categories than the control group.
他们发现，其中，颜色—字母联觉者明显比对照组更善于记住事物。
However, when the same experiment was run with a group of 18 word-taste synesthetes and 18 control subjects,
然而，他们在18名单词—味觉联觉者和18个对照组进行了同样的实验，
the data showed that the synesthetic people didn't have a statistically significant advantage over the control group.
数据显示，具有联觉能力的人并不比对照组有明显优势。
Other small studies have had similarly mixed results.
同样，其他小型研究结果也不同。
This makes it hard to tell whether just having synesthesia gives you memory boost because memory also has to do with making connections in the brain,
这使得我们很难判断仅仅有联觉是否会增强记忆，因为记忆也与大脑的连接有关，
or whether certain subtypes of synesthesia can help with certain tests.
或者某些亚型联觉是否有助于某些测试。
Some scientists think the memory advantage depends on whether the thing you're trying to remember
一些科学家认为，记忆优势取决于你想要记住的东西
is going through similar sensory paths in your brain as your synesthesia.
是否经历了大脑中与联觉相似的感觉路径。
These researchers, for instance, concluded that the color-letter synesthetes likely had more activity in the visual brain regions,
这些研究人员得出的结论是，颜色—字母联觉者的视觉大脑区域可能更活跃，
which could let them process and remember visual information—both images and words—better.
使得他们可以更好地处理和记忆视觉信息——包括图像和单词。
So if you find songs to be literally tasty jams, or think that the alphabet looks like a giant rainbow,
所以，如果你觉得歌曲简直就是美味的果酱，或者认为字母表看起来像一条长长的彩虹，
you might have a bit of an edge on the rest of us when it comes to memory.
在记忆力方面，你可能比其余的人更强。
Use your powers for good! Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych, brought to you by our wonderful patrons on Patreon!
善用你的优势！感谢收看本集心理科学秀！本集节目由Patreon赞助！
If you'd like to support all the SciShow channels, you can go to patreon.com/scishow.
如果你想收看所有频道，可以访问patreon.com/scishow。
And if you want to keep exploring weird brain things with us, go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe.
如果你想和我们一起探索更多的大脑怪事，订阅youtube.com/scishowpsych。
