ABSTRACT

At the first ever worldwide international conference of psychology in Paris, 1889, one symposium included a round-table event devoted entirely to the neurodevelopmental condition of synesthesia. Details of this seminal gathering on synesthesia and its international reception have been lost to historical obscurity. A synesthesia study committee emerged from this meeting, as well as a new research tool. Moreover, the scientific findings discussed during this symposium would be echoed over a hundred years later, when a new wave of synesthesia research in the late-twentieth century arose. This article sheds new light on this seminal gathering and aims to answer the following historical questions: Why was synesthesia included in this conference? What science was discussed? Who were the members of the committee and how did they come to be involved? What were their contributions to synesthesia research before, during, and after the conference? What has history shown us about the impact of this symposium on the science of synesthesia?

摘要

1889 年在巴黎举行的首届全球心理学国际会议上，一场研讨会包括一个完全致力于联觉神经发育状况的圆桌会议。这场关于联觉的开创性聚会及其国际接待的细节已被历史遗忘。这次会议产生了一个联觉研究委员会，以及一个新的研究工具。此外，当 20 世纪后期新一波联觉研究兴起时，本次研讨会上讨论的科学发现将在一百多年后得到回应。本文为这次开创性的聚会提供了新的视角，旨在回答以下历史问题：为什么这次会议包括联觉？讨论了什么科学？谁是委员会的成员，他们是如何参与进来的？他们在会议之前、期间和之后对联觉研究的贡献是什么？关于这次研讨会对联觉科学的影响，历史向我们展示了什么？