Synesthesia: II. Psychophysical relations in the synesthesia of geometrically shaped taste and colored hearing

The psychophysical function in two synesthetic subjects, one with geometrically shaped taste and the other with colored hearing, is investigated. Each synesthete is compared with three control subjects. Pilot studies are used to construct appropriate response domains. Compared to controls, synesthetes give a restricted set of responses that are also asymmetric with respect to the range of choices available in various subsets of the response domain. A combination of absolute and relative effects is also distinctive of synesthetic percepts. It is concluded that synesthesia is a distinct phenomenon unlike ordinary mediated associations, and occupies an intermediate position in the range of simple to complex brain mechanisms.     

On ego development and the structure of personality

present a theory of ego development as composed of several substructures related so that achievement of a given stage in one substructure is necessary but not sufficient for achieving the corresponding stage of another. The postulation of an exact relation belies what is known of the texture of human behavior and is premature in the absence of precise measurement of the several substructures and precise matching of stages. An alternative, the empirical method of simultaneously constructing a measure of ego development and portraits of the several stages, which Snarey et al. criticize for lack of strict logical coherence, is in the best tradition of contemporary science. The stage portraits are “prototypes” or “fuzzy sets.” Any mental structure can be divided into substructures, but the most general, superordinate structure is likely to prove most useful.