There are good reasons for using PowerPoint (in a limited way for certain presentations), but the reason most commonly given by trainers — that doing so appeals to the visual learners in the audience — is pure bunk. Thanks for debunking it.

Taking up Chris Atherton’s point about the contrast between the language of academia and blogging, on the one hand, and that of fiction, on the other – in our experience, the gap between them doesn’t have to be the chasm you might expect. In fact, the best communicators in the world of work instinctively bring poetic language into the workplace.

Poetry, and all the arts, definitely exist thanks to synaesthesia – and the good news is that though synaesthesia fades in most of us, it never disappears!

Cheers,
Martin

Fascinating. Hugely enjoyable too.

I was musing in a blog post just two days ago, though in a very much broader way, on Shakespeare’s ability to ‘paint pictures with words’ and describe an entire scene from a bare stage to such effect that the audience is transported by the image. Henry V certainly illustrates this beautifully, but so do lots of other characters of course. Enobarbus for one.

But your thought-provoking post got me musing on the place of synaesthesia in poetry. Might such a (pre)condition explain why some describe their worlds in such richly embroidered metaphors? Or even simple ones. The originality, for example, in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins might owe much to living in just such a multi-sensory world, expressed through infinite wordplay. ‘The wind-wandering, weed-winding bank’ of the river is just one phrase that springs to mind.

Thank you for elevating my workaday thoughts to a somewhat higher plane .. if, alas, only briefly!

Colin

Thanks for your comment and question. Again I don’t want to be a party pooper, but I think you’ll find that despite its seductiveness – we’re all smart in our own way – there is a lack of hard scientific evidence for the theory of multiple intelligences – as well as some definitional problems too.

Here are some links that might interest you:
http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2009/11/gardners-multiple-intelligences.html
http://www.illinoisloop.org/mi.html
http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=3016

I’m not sure if Daniel Willingham has said much on Multiple Intelligences. Donald Clark has, though. Here, for example: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2009/11/gardners-multiple-intelligences.html

He’s very negative (but then he’s negative about most things). But I have to concede he makes some good points.

My view on Multiple Intelligences is the similar to my views on Learning Styles. There’s a lot of bluster and some people seem to take offence at their very existence. I think it’s their application that counts.

Simon

Lovely post, thanks: two big likes of mine – synaesthesia and Branagh’s Henry V, three if you count Patrick Doyle’s marvellous score – in one place!

I really enjoy the richness of metaphor and I think synaesthesic language has a lot to offer in that regard. Unfortunately academic papers don’t really permit that kind of writing most of the time, and even blogging has its limits. I secretly think that fiction writers have by far the most fun on that score …

One of the ways I wish synaesthesic concepts could be used in communication is in visual aids, but I know enough now from reading about it to know that not everyone thinks five is a red number, or that low D on a violin is dark brown …

Chris