I see sounds as shapes. Synaesthesia has given me a rare skill for languages | Australian life-style

Car journeys with my associate are a nightmare. He’s an ex-DJ so he likes to crank the music up, however for me this implies seeing static photographs and flashes of sunshine in my thoughts’s eye whereas I’m attempting to drive. It’s onerous to explain precisely what I see once I hear sound. But it’s virtually just like the sound waves you’d see if you happen to watched an audio recording on a display screen, or these little neurons connecting and area nebulas exploding in entrance of me.

I’m 44 now and solely realised I had auditory-visual synaesthesia in my 30s. What I did know was that I appeared to have a rare skill for linguistics. In college I studied Japanese and did very well with out attempting as a result of I may actually see the phrases and sounds introduced as photographs in entrance of me, making them simple to recollect. At college I majored in Spanish, Korean and Indonesian and it was no effort in any respect. I then joined the air pressure as an intelligence officer as a result of I didn’t wish to grow to be a instructor or translator. I walked away from the language aptitude check pondering I’d both messed it up or that it had been the best factor I’d ever completed in my life. No one’s ever managed to get each reply proper, they stated when the outcomes got here again. But I hadn’t even tried. It simply got here naturally.

The first time I heard the phrase synaesthesia was once I determined to work in speech pathology after leaving the army. I began studying about autism spectrum dysfunction and numerous types of neurodivergence, and examine this phenomenon referred to as synaesthesia, through which stimulation of 1 sense results in computerized experiences in a second sense. I didn’t make any connection to my very own experiences however started studying a ebook a few man who may study languages in a matter of hours. Still, I didn’t make the connection. I simply thought it was attention-grabbing.

It wasn’t till I began doing speech-to-text computational linguistic work that I began actually interested by the truth that I used to be seeing these shapes once I heard sounds or phonemes. I discovered a Facebook group full of people that noticed sounds too, although all of them noticed sounds as colors whereas mine are all black and white shapes. The solely time I see color is once I hear high-frequency sounds, which begin as vivid white then transfer via the dimensions of yellows to oranges to reds. I’ve all the time been in a position to move listening to exams at ridiculously quiet decibels as a result of I see the pure tones as totally different colored flashes.

One day I used to be working as an assistant transcribing Indigenous creole languages for Wollongong University when my supervisor put me in contact with the pinnacle linguist for Apple. She was in search of somebody actually good with phonetics, who could be free to go to Japan for 90 days to work on a brand new speech-to-text mission. On day one of many job I discovered I’d been chosen to work on Siri.

I spent quite a lot of time in headphones over these subsequent 90 days, as they recorded Australian voices and I sat in. I cherished it and I’ve cherished just about each work-day since. I’ve completed speech-to-text initiatives for Tom Tom GPS and Bank of America, and quite a lot of my day-to-day work now’s as a speech pathologist, serving to kids and adults to speak and swallow higher.

I’m not apprehensive in regards to the rise of AI as a result of language is extremely nuanced and robots merely aren’t ok to select up these subtleties. I can break down the western Sydney Lebanese accent instantly. I wouldn’t belief AI to do it.

My type of synaesthesia comes with its challenges. I put on quite a lot of earplugs to dam out the sound round me, and my mind feels busy just about always due to the noisy world we reside in. Running to music is my favorite approach to change off. It’s the one time I don’t see sound and my mind is quiet.

All of that stated, I wouldn’t change my synaesthesia for a second. I may lose my sight and minimize my arms off, but when I couldn’t work with phrases and sounds it might destroy me. I really feel so fortunate that I discovered this subject of labor once I did, and I’ll preserve going till I’m 80 if I can. It seems like my cause for being – my ikigai, they name it in Japanese. I’d do it without spending a dime if I didn’t have payments to pay.