Hearing smell and tasting words: The science of synaesthesia - with Mary Jane Spiller

See sounds or taste words? Discover how synaesthesia reveals the surprising ways our senses and brain work together to shape perception. This talk was filmed at the Royal Institution on the 3rd of November 2025 Watch the Q&A session for this talk here (exclusively for our Science Supporter members):    • The science of synaesthesia: Understanding...   Join this channel as a member to get access to perks:    / @theroyalinstitution   How does the brain make sense of the world around us? For most of us, our senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—seem separate. But in reality, they work together in complex ways. Some people experience synaesthesia, where senses blend in remarkable ways—like tasting words or seeing colours when hearing music. Join cognitive psychologist Mary Jane Spiller as she discusses how our senses interact, why some people experience synaesthesia, and what this reveals about perception, memory, attention, and the vividness of our inner worlds. Discover how this rare condition offers powerful insights into the workings of the human brain. --- Mary Jane Spiller is a cognitive psychologist and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of East London. Her research focuses on how we perceive and interpret the world through our senses, with a particular interest in synaesthesia. She completed her PhD on mental imagery in synaesthesia and has published extensively on how these unique perceptual experiences relate to memory, attention, and individual differences in cognition. She was invited to contribute a chapter to the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia and has also written a chapter on synaesthesia for A Student’s Guide to Cognitive Neuropsychology. --- Join this channel to get access to perks:    / @theroyalinstitution   Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe --- Chapters: 00:00 What Color Is Monday? 03:10 What Does the Name “Derek” Taste Like? 07:00 Introducing Synesthesia 11:30 Grapheme–Color Synesthesia 15:00 Projector vs Associator Synesthetes 19:10 Spatial Synesthesia: Seeing Numbers in Space 21:30 Time–Space Synesthesia 26:40 Tasting Words and Shapes in Food 30:00 When Synesthetic Associations Feel “Wrong” 34:30 The History of Synesthesia Research 36:50 Testing Whether Synesthesia Is Real 42:40 The Stroop Test and Automatic Perception 48:50 Imagining Letters and Seeing Colours 54:30 Does Attention Affect Synesthetic Experience --- The Ri is on Twitter:   / ri_science   and Facebook:   / royalinstitution   and TikTok:   / ri_science   Listen to the Ri podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh... Donate to the RI and help us bring you more lectures: https://www.rigb.org/support-us/donat... Our editorial policy: https://www.rigb.org/editing-ri-talks... Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter Product links on this page may be affiliate links which means it won't cost you any extra but we may earn a small commission if you decide to purchase through the link. #synaesthesia #synesthesia #howthebrainworks #cognitivepsychology #neuroscience #brainandperception #humanperception #psychologylecture #sensoryperception #braindiscovery #weirdbrainphenomena #howweseetheworld #memoryandattention #brainexperiments #royalinstitution