Imagine a world in which you see numbers and letters as colored even though they're printed in black,
想像这样一个世界，你从中看到的数字和字母是彩色的，尽管它们是用黑色写下的
in which music or voices trigger a swirl of moving, colored shapes,
这里的音乐或声响会激起由移动着的彩色色块组成的的漩涡，
in which words and names fill your mouth with unusual flavors.
在这里，词语和名字会用不寻常的味道填满你的嘴巴。
Jail tastes like cold, hard bacon while Derek tastes like earwax.
“Jail”尝起来像冰冷坚硬的培根，而“Derek”吃着像耳屎。
Welcome to synesthesia, the neurological phenomenon that couples two or more senses in 4% of the population.
欢迎来到联觉的世界。这种神经学现象将4%的人的两种或以上的感觉连接在一起。
A synesthete might not only hear my voice, but also see it, taste it, or feel it as a physical touch.
一个有联觉者可能不仅会听到我的声音，还会看到，尝到或者以物理接触的方式感知到。
Sharing the same root with anesthesia, meaning no sensation, synesthesia means joined sensation.
联觉和感觉缺失的来源相同，感觉缺失是指没有感觉，而联觉是指感觉被联通。
Having one type, such as colored hearing, gives you a 50% chance of having a second, third, or fourth type.
拥有一种联觉，例如“色-听”联觉，你便有50%的可能拥有第二种，第三种，甚至第四种联觉。
One in 90 among us experience graphemes, the written elements of language,
90个人中便有一个会感觉字素--构成语言的书面成分，
like letters, numerals, and punctuation marks, as saturated with color. Some even have gender or personality.
例如字母，数字还有标点符号，都是五彩缤纷的。有些甚至有性别或性格。
For Gail, 3 is athletic and sporty, 9 is a vain, elitist girl.
对盖尔来说，3充满运动气息，9则是一个自负的精英女孩。
By contrast, the sound units of language, or phonemes, trigger synestetic tastes.
与之相对，构成语言的声音部分，或者说声素，会联发味觉。
For James, college tastes like sausage, as does message and similar words with the -age ending.
对詹姆斯来说，“college”尝起来像香肠，“message”还有其他类似的以“age”结尾的词也是一样的。
Synesthesia is a trait, like having blue eyes, rather than a disorder because there's nothing wrong.
联觉是人的一种特征，就像蓝眼睛一样，而不是一种紊乱，因为它并不代表什么毛病。
In fact, all the extra hooks endow synesthetes with superior memories.
事实上，所有这些额外的关联，赋予了联觉者超凡的记忆力。
For example, a girl runs into someone she met long ago.
举个例子，一个女孩遇见了一个她很久以前认识的人。
"Let's see, she had a green name. D's are green: Debra, Darby, Dorothy, Denise. Yes! Her name is Denise!"
“让我看看，她有个绿色的名字。D开头的是绿色的：Debra、Darby、Dorothy、Denise。没错！她叫Denise！”

Once established in childhood, pairings remain fixed for life.
一旦在儿时建立了联系，关联的感觉间的联系就会伴随终身。
Synesthetes inherit a biological propensity for hyperconnecting brain neurons,
有联觉者遗传了在大脑神经元之间建立超连接的生物倾向，
but then must be exposed to cultural artifacts, such as calendars, food names, and alphabets.
但之后必须接触接触文化产品，例如日历，食物的名字，还有字母表。
The amazing thing is that a single nucleotide change in the sequence of one's DNA alters perception.
令人惊奇的是，在DNA序列中，一个核苷酸的变化就可以改变一个人认知世界的方式。
In this way, synesthesia provides a path to understanding subjective differences, how two people can see the same thing differently.
通过这种方式，联觉提供了一种途径，来理解主观认知的区别，两个人如何对同样的事物产生不同的认知。
Take Sean, who prefers blue tasting food, such as milk, oranges, and spinach.
拿肖恩来说，他喜欢尝起来是蓝色的食物，像牛奶、橙子还有菠菜。
The gene heightens normally occurring connections between the taste area in his frontal lobe and the color area further back.
基因会增强额叶中的味觉区和较靠后的色觉区之间的正常连接。
But suppose in someone else that the gene acted in non-sensory areas.
但假设某人的这一组基因作用于非感观的部位。
You would then have the ability to link seemingly unrelated things,
他便会有能力连结起看来风马牛不相及的事物，
which is the definition of metaphor, seeing the similar in the dissimilar.
这也正是比喻的定义--从不相似中发现相似。
Not surprisingly, synesthesia is more common in artists who excel at making metaphors,
自然地，联觉更频繁地出现在善于运用比拟的艺术家中，
like novelist Vladimir Nabokov, painter David Hockney, and composers Billy Joel and Lady Gaga.
像小说家弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫、画家大卫·霍克尼，还有作曲家比利·乔尔以及Lady Gaga。
But why do the rest of us non-synesthetes understand metaphors like "sharp cheese" or "sweet person"?
但为何我们这些非联觉者会明白像“锐利的芝士”、“甜蜜的人”之类的比喻？
It so happens that sight, sound, and movement already map to one another so closely,
原来是因为视觉、声音和移动早已紧密联系在了一起。
that even bad ventriloquists convince us that the dummy is talking.
即使是拙劣的口技表演者也能让我们相信人偶真的在说话。
Movies, likewise, can convince us that the sound is coming from the actors' mouths rather than surrounding speakers.
电影，类似地，让我们相信声音是来自演员的嘴巴，而不是周围的音响。
So, inwardly, we're all synesthetes, outwardly unaware of the perceptual couplings happening all the time.
所以，在内心深处，我们都是有联觉者，在表面上却不知晓感觉的联结每时每刻都在发生。
Cross-talk in the brain is the rule, not the exception.
大脑里信息的互相干扰是常态，而不是例外。
And that sounds like a sweet deal to me!
而在我听来，这真是一件甜蜜的事！