A 25 year old man says that he can smell music. This phenomenon is termed as?
Exam Question Jul 2012
Exam Question Dec 2010
Synaesthesia refers to the phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to experiences in a second sensory pathway, e.g. hearing a smell, or seeing a noise.
Completion illusions4%Synaesthesia74%Extracampine hallucinations8%Functional hallucinations8%Pareidolia6%
Exam Question Jul 2012
Exam Question Dec 2010
Synaesthesia refers to the phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to experiences in a second sensory pathway, e.g. hearing a smell, or seeing a noise.
Illusions
An illusion is an altered perception of a stimulus and differs from a hallucination in that in hallucinations there is no stimulus.
There are three main types of illusion
- Completion illusions describe the tendency to fill in missing information in order to make sense of a stimulus
- Affect illusions arise due to specific mood (affective) states e.g. a woman is walking home in the dark and is frightened, she mistakes a tree for a tall man in a long coat.
- Pareidolic illusions arise when detailed images are seen from shapes. E.g. seeing the man in the moon, or Jesus Christ on a piece of burnt toast.
Pareidolic illusions tend to occur when a person is concentrating whereas affect and completion illusions occur during inattention.
