Synasthetics is a 3D random shape generator software which intends to investigate the possible connections between textual and visual cognition, and to use these connections to generate visuals which are user – specific and even personal. The project was designed and developed with Damla Tamer.

In the project, several randomly created meaningless words are shown to the user along with randomly created 3D shapes. The user is asked to couple words with shapes to create a relational profile. When enough couplings are done, the user enters a word and the application generates a new 3D shape given his / her tendencies to match words with shapes.

The project was developed using Virtools 3D environment authoring tool duing CS450 course, given at Sabanci University. It was also presented at Siggraph 2007, San Diego, California US. You can download the paper here. You can also download a video about synaesthetics and all the images shown in this page.

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Here is an excerpt from the paper:

“The idea has stemmed from synesthesia, a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one of the five senses invokes perception by the way of a different sense, for example, the taste of chocolate causing the perception of  prickles on the skin. The most common kind of synesthesia is grapheme – color synesthesia, in which letters and numbers are perceived as colors.

Metaphors common to most languages, such as “sharp taste” or “soft colors” indicate that all humans tend to make connections. Technology allows interactive environments in which the visual, the audiotory, the tactile and the textual can exist together; allowing human perception to evolve by making use of different kinds of stimuli simultaneously. Our project uses versatility and interactivity by first making the user determine the connections and coherence between the stimuli according to his/her perception and then combine the stimuli to create the environment; rather than adding up different kinds of stimuli which are independent of each other.”

keywords: cognition, random share generator, synaesthesia