Richard Cytowic

Last updated
Richard E. Cytowic
REC-Magenta nosat crop.jpg
Born (1952-12-16) December 16, 1952 (age 70)
Nationality American
Alma mater Duke University, Wake Forest, American University
Known forSynesthesia, Neuropsychology, Nonfiction writing
AwardsMontaigne Medal 2011, Pulitzer Prize nominee, Artist Fellow, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award
Scientific career
Fields Neuroscience
Institutions George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences
Website Web site

Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author [1] who rekindled interest in synesthesia [2] [3] [4] [5] in the 1980s and returned it to mainstream science. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times Magazine cover story [6] about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks [7] and music reviews, to his Metro Weekly "Love Doctor" essays [8] and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov, [9] Maurice Ravel [10] and Virginia Woolf. [11] His work is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries, “Orange Sherbert Kisses” (1994) [12] and “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (2014). [13]

Contents

In Musicophilia , Oliver Sacks writes:

In the 1980, Richard Cytowic made the first neurophysiological studies of synesthetic subjects... In 1989, he published a pioneering text, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses, and this was followed by a popular exploration of the subject in 1993, The Man Who Tasted Shapes . Current techniques of functional brain imaging now give unequivocal evidence for the simultaneous activation or coactivation of two or more sensory areas of the cerebral cortex in synesthetes, just as Cytowic’s work predicted. [14]

Of Wednesday is Indigo Blue , co–authored by Cytowic and David Eagleman, Sacks said, “Their work has changed the way we think of the human brain, and [it] is a unique and indispensable guide for anyone interested in how we perceive the world.” The book won the 2011 Montaigne Medal. [15]

Cytowic is a Professor of Neurology at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, a Mentor at the Point Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board for Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Biography

Cytowic was born on December 16, 1952 in Trenton, New Jersey to a physician father and artist mother, and grew up with an extended family of scientists and artists. His mother is ESPN's "Super Nana Marge", Tim Tebow's No. 1 fan. [16] As a child, Cytowic liked taking things apart and putting them back together to figure out how they worked.

He attended Hun School of Princeton (class of 1970), [17] graduated cum laude from Duke University, and received his M.D. from Wake Forest's Bowman Gray School of Medicine. He studied further at London's Queen Square (Institute of Neurology), and George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences before founding a private clinic, Capitol Neurology. He also holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from American University [18] (2011).

Retired from clinical practice, Cytowic now mentors medical students at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences, writes academic and popular nonfiction, and lectures at museums and cultural institutions worldwide such as the Istanbul Biennial. [19] With installation artist Marcos Lutyens he designed an interactive project at the Los Angeles Main Museum, “A Semantic Survey of Emotions.” During his North Carolina years, he served as music critic for the Winston-Salem Journal .

Works

Books
Reviews and essays
Lectures

Artistic fellowships

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl H. Pribram</span>

Karl H. Pribram was a professor at Georgetown University, in the United States, an emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at Stanford University and distinguished professor at Radford University. Board-certified as a neurosurgeon, Pribram did pioneering work on the definition of the limbic system, the relationship of the frontal cortex to the limbic system, the sensory-specific "association" cortex of the parietal and temporal lobes, and the classical motor cortex of the human brain. He worked with Karl Lashley at the Yerkes Primate Center of which he was to become director later. He was professor at Yale University for ten years and at Stanford University for thirty years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinical neuropsychology</span> Sub-field of neuropsychology concerned with the applied science of brain-behaviour relationships

Clinical neuropsychology is a sub-field of cognitive science and psychology concerned with the applied science of brain-behaviour relationships. Clinical neuropsychologists use this knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and or rehabilitation of patients across the lifespan with neurological, medical, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions, as well as other cognitive and learning disorders. The branch of neuropsychology associated with children and young people is pediatric neuropsychology.

The clavier à lumières, or tastiera per luce, as it appears in the score, was a musical instrument invented by Alexander Scriabin for use in his work Prometheus: Poem of Fire. Only one version of this instrument was constructed, for the performance of Prometheus: Poem of Fire in New York City in 1915. The instrument was supposed to be a keyboard, with notes corresponding to colors as given by Scriabin's synesthetic system, specified in the score. However, numerous synesthesia researchers have cast doubt on the claim that Scriabin was a synesthete.

<i>The Man Who Tasted Shapes</i> Book by Richard Cytowic

The Man Who Tasted Shapes is a book by neurologist Richard Cytowic about synesthesia.

Doreen Kimura was a Canadian psychologist who was professor at the University of Western Ontario and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University. Kimura was recognized for her contributions to the field of neuropsychology and later, her advocacy for academic freedom. She was the founding president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

In medicine and anatomy, the special senses are the senses that have specialized organs devoted to them:

William Hirstein is an American philosopher primarily interested in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, metaphysics, cognitive science, and analytic philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at Elmhurst University.

James H. Austin is an American neurologist and author. He is the author of the book Zen and the Brain. It establishes links between the neurophysiology of the human brain and the practice of meditation, and won the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize for 1998. He has written five sequels: Zen-Brain Reflections (2006), Selfless Insight (2009), Meditating Selflessly (2011), Zen-Brain Horizons (2014) and Living Zen Remindfully (2016).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Eagleman</span> American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator

David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO and co-founder of Neosensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. He also directs the non-profit Center for Science and Law, which seeks to align the legal system with modern neuroscience and is Chief Science Officer and co-founder of BrainCheck, a digital cognitive health platform used in medical practices and health systems. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are coupled. For example, in a form of synesthesia known as grapheme-color synesthesia, letters or numbers may be perceived as inherently colored. Historically, the most commonly described form of synesthesia has been between sound and vision, e.g. the hearing of colors in music.

Ordinal-linguistic personification is a form of synesthesia in which ordered sequences, such as ordinal numbers, days, months and letters are associated with personalities or genders. Although this form of synesthesia was documented as early as the 1890s, researchers have, until recently, paid little attention to this form.

Lexical–gustatory synesthesia is a rare form of synesthesia in which spoken and written language causes individuals to experience an automatic and highly consistent taste/smell. The taste is often experienced as a complex mixture of both temperature and texture. For example, in a particular synaesthete, JIW, the word jail would taste of cold, hard bacon. Synesthetic tastes are evoked by an inducer/concurrent complex. The inducer is the stimulus that activates the sensation and the taste experience is the concurrent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Montfort</span> American poet & digital media professor

Nick Montfort is a poet and professor of digital media at MIT, where he directs a lab called The Trope Tank. He also holds a part-time position at the University of Bergen where he leads a node on computational narrative systems at the Center for Digital Narrative. Among his publications are seven books of computer-generated literature and six books from the MIT Press, several of which are collaborations. His work also includes digital projects, many of them in the form of short programs. He lives in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chromesthesia</span> Sound to color synesthesia

Chromesthesia or sound-to-color synesthesia is a type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape, and movement. Individuals with sound-color synesthesia are consciously aware of their synesthetic color associations/perceptions in daily life. Synesthetes that perceive color while listening to music experience the colors in addition to the normal auditory sensations. The synesthetic color experience supplements, but does not obscure real, modality-specific perceptions. As with other forms of synesthesia, individuals with sound-color synesthesia perceive it spontaneously, without effort, and as their normal realm of experience. Chromesthesia can be induced by different auditory experiences, such as music, phonemes, speech, and/or everyday sounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualia</span> Instances of subjective experience

In philosophy of mind, qualia are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in relation to a specific instance, such as "what it is like to taste a specific apple — this particular apple now".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synesthesia</span> Neurological condition involving the crossing of senses in a rare way

Synesthesia or synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. Awareness of synesthetic perceptions varies from person to person. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme–color synesthesia or color–graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space, or may appear as a three-dimensional map. Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.

<i>Wednesday Is Indigo Blue</i>

Wednesday Is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia is a 2009 non-fiction book written by Richard Cytowic and David Eagleman documenting the current scientific understanding of synesthesia, a perceptual condition where an experience of one sense causes an automatic and involuntary experience in another sense. The afterword is written by Dimitri Nabokov, a synesthete, and the son of the well-known author and synesthete Vladimir Nabokov.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASMR</span> Static-like or tingling sensation on the skin/body

An autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a tingling sensation that usually begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson. ASMR is a subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin." It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans-Lukas Teuber</span> German, then American psychologist (1916–1977)

Hans-Lukas Teuber was a professor of psychology and head of the psychology department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was one of the founders of neuropsychology and studied perception. He coined the term double dissociation. He also introduced the "Corollary Discharge" hypothesis. He gave the classic definition of agnosia as "a normal percept stripped of its meaning".

References

Notes

  1. "Books by Richard Cytowic". cytowic.net. Archived from the original on 2008-09-01.
  2. Cytowic, RE (2009) Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. (Co-authored with David Eagleman) Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN   978-0-262-01279-9
  3. Cytowic, RE (2003) The Man Who Tasted Shapes Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN   978-0-262-53255-6
  4. Cytowic, RE (2002).Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses (2nd ed). Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN   978-0-262-03296-4 (1st ed 1989, Springer-Verlag.)
  5. Cytowic, RE (1996) The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN   978-0-262-03231-5 (pp 224-226, 235-237)
  6. September 27, 1981
  7. The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology(1996). Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN   978-0-262-03231-5
  8. "Love Doctor essays for Metro Weekly Magazine" . Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  9. "Cytowic.net Checkhov pdf" . Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  10. Aphasia in Maurice Ravel, Irwin Brody Award for History of Neuroscience, Duke University (1978). Available at Cytowic.net Ravel pdf
  11. Magazine, Richard E. Cytowic for Seed. "Many Minds, One Story § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM". seedmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2017-07-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  12. "Orange Sherbert Kisses, 1994-1995, Horizon - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  13. "BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  14. Sacks, Oliver (2007). Musicophilia . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp.  178–179. ISBN   978-1-400-04081-0.
  15. "Montaigne Medal Winners". www.hofferaward.com. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  16. Video on YouTube
  17. Recognition: Alumni of the Year, Hun School of Princeton. Accessed March 6, 2011.
  18. "Richard Cytowic's Academic CV" . Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  19. Trafo. "Save the Date for the 14th Istanbul Biennial: SALTWATER: A THEORY OF THOUGHT FORMS". bienal.iksv.org. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
  20. The Oxford handbook of synesthesia. Simner, Julia., Hubbard, Edward M. (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2013. ISBN   9780199603329. OCLC   841911309.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. E., Cytowic, Richard (2009). Wednesday is indigo blue : discovering the brain of synesthesia. Eagleman, David. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN   9780262012799. OCLC   317116544.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  22. E., Cytowic, Richard (2003). The man who tasted shapes (MIT Press ed. with new afterword, 2003 ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN   9780262532556. OCLC   53186027.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. E., Cytowic, Richard (2002). Synesthesia : a union of the senses (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN   9780262032964. OCLC   51959282.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. E., Cytowic, Richard (1996). The neurological side of neuropsychology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. ISBN   9780262032315. OCLC   31940329.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  25. E., Cytowic, Richard (1990). Nerve block for common pain. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN   0387971475. OCLC   20453497.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. "The Hambidge Center". www.hambidge.org. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
  27. "VCCA: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts -". www.vcca.com. Retrieved 6 November 2018.