Ideasthesia

Ideasthesia (alternative spelling ideaesthesia) is defined as a phenomenon in which activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like experiences (concurrents). The name comes from Greek ἰδέα (idéa) and αἴσθησις (aísthēsis), meaning "sensing concepts" or "sensing ideas". The main reason for introducing the notion of ideasthesia was the empirical evidence indicating that the related term synesthesia (i.e. union of senses) suggests incorrect explanation of a set of phenomena traditionally covered by this heading. Syn-aesthesis denoting "co-perceiving", implies the association of two sensory elements with little connection to the cognitive level. However, according to some workers, most phenomena that have inadvertently been linked to synesthesia in fact are induced by the semantic representations i.e., the meaning of the stimulus rather than by its sensory properties, as would be implied by the term synesthesia. In other words, while synesthesia presumes that both inducer and concurrent are of sensory nature, ideasthesia presumes that only the concurrent is of sensory nature while inducer is semantic. Research on ideasthesia bears important implications for solving the mystery of human conscious experience, which according to ideasthesia, is grounded in how we activate concepts.