Via Jason Kottke

“You are looking at the far end of the transformation from metric, visual shapes to conceptual memory-related information. It is that transformation that underlies our ability to understand the world. It’s not enough to see something familiar and match it. It’s the fact that you plug visual information into the rich tapestry of memory that brings it to life.”

The New Scientist reports that previously debunked theories about “grandmother-cells,” which connect images to specific memories, are being accepted again in psychologist circles.

This reminds me of an old AGFA or Kodak advertisement in India – “Memories fade. Images do not.”

When you see the number 5 do you see red? If you do, you are likely to have a condition called synaesthesia or the intermingling of the five senses. You aren't unique, though. Apparently one in 2000 have this.

“This cross-wiring might develop, they believe, by a failure of the ‘pruning' of nerve connections between the areas as the brain develops while still in the womb.”

I wonder if the colors and numbers experienced by these people are the same if they individually have their own unique combinations. If you are staring in to a computer screen day-in and day-out as I do, to color correct images, one can only hope that photographers and photo editors aren't afflicted by this. It would be sheer hell to deal with seeing colors and numbers at the same time. Heck, growing up in India reciting the requisite multiplication tables gave me the shivers; I think I saw red, blue, yellow and finally black (when I passed out).