Annotated Bibliography

Cytowic, Richard E. “What Color Is Tuesday? Exploring Synesthesia – Richard E. Cytowic.” YouTube. YouTube, 10 June 2013. Web. 23 Nov. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRbebvoYqI>.

Richard Cytowic is a well-known neurologist who has written and taught about synesthesia and was trained at Duke University, London’s National Hospital for Nervous Diseases and George Washington University. The author’s thesis is that synesthesia is beneficial for memorization and already a way in which people think. The author’s intended audience includes students and individuals interested in neurobiology and synesthesia.

Cytowic’s bias is trying to educate people about synesthesia and may not be including all of his opinion on its benefits and how there may be counter-arguments to this information. The strength of this video is that it explains the content with a lot of detail, explaining it visually so that it is easy to comprehend. Another strength is that with authority he can outline the results of his research. Yet, the source is limited as it is too short for Cytowic to expand on missing pieces of the research or specific results to prove this theory. It furthers the argument made for our final project because it mentions that people are predisposed to think in this way, and having a tool to boost this ability would therefore be successful. The video is relevant because gives more insight in to how synesthesia works, thus becoming a source of inspiration for the apps for the project. Moreover, it gives insight into the human brain and how the average person would transition well into utilizing synesthetic functions to learn. However, the source is not directly related to education and may be to general to draw any strong conclusions from.

Massy-Beresford, Helen. “How We All Could Benefit From Synesthesia.” The Guardian. The Guardian, 26 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Nov. 2014. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2014%2Fapr%2F27%2Fbenefit-synaesthesia-brain-injury-mental-decline>.

Helen Massy-Beresford is a freelance reporter, who writes about business, travel, lifestyle, science and technology and health. In the article How We All Could Benefit From Synesthesia, Massy-Beresford argues induced synesthesia could help with memorizing and learning information. She draws upon various compelling research results conducted across different universities and the predictions they have for the implications to further this argument. The author’s intended readers are those interested in neuroscience, health, ageing, psychology, biology and medical research, as seen through the topic tags that have been used for this article.

Massy-Beresford is not a researcher but a reporter on the findings and she seems to be fascinated by the results, which could imply that she may be overrating the possible repercussions of this research and she may not know the pitfalls of the studies. A strong factor of the article is that she draws upon quotes of authority figures in the scientific arena and explains the experimental process that the researchers went through to reach these conclusions.  Although, the article falls short of proposing counter-arguments or aspects of the research that could be limited to draw any grand relationships between learning and synesthesia. Another weakness is that the article fails to demonstrate the research and the specific method that was used to conduct the experiments. This article furthers our argument that memorization can be helped by inducing synesthesia on the non-synaesthete population. Although, it focuses more heavily on the results on how it can help the elderly and it doesn’t have evidence on how it can affect child education. Nevertheless, the article does mention the possible effect and future investment on pedagogical research because of scientific belief induced synesthesia can be beneficial.