View source for Talk:Synesthesia

==Reviewer 1==
Overall I am very pleased to see that the authors made some of the changes that were suggested by myself and Reviewer 2.  There ar estill some issues that I feel need to be tackled. 

Specific Comments

1)	As I understand it, the purpose of the section on “Martian colours” is to illustrate the point that synesthesia is more than memory associations.  Fine.  But I still don’t think it merits its own section early on in the article.  I think it would be better placed in one of the sections that deals with more general issues (nature/nurture, physiology) in which it could potentially make a more direct contribution.
2)	I am still uncomfortable with the word ‘exotic’.  Although I do understand the gist of it, I’d appreciate something more meaningful such as “Rarer types of synesthesia” or “Less studied varieties of synesthesia”.
3)	Related to this, it isn’t obvious what the criterion is for ‘exotic’.  For example, the touch-emotion synesthesia gets its own section (ditto for martian colours) but other types of synesthesia are bundled together as ‘exotic’.  I don’t see the reason why touch-emotion synesthesia should be given its own unique section.  Is it less exotic?  It should be placed in the section presently labelled as exotic (that I sincerely hope will be re-labelled).  Unlike other types of synesthesia, it has yet to be peer reviewed and we, as a community, do place importance on this (rightly or wrongly).  I have noted the authors’ objections to peer review (and I have some sympathy with it), but at the end of the day we all have to work within these constraints – and that includes you.  When I give authors specific advice (e.g. please downplay this section because it has not been peer reviewed and please add it to the ‘exotic’ section), I do not expect to be given a lecture on the History of Scientific Discovery (from Galileo to Mendel).
4)	Please check again the sentence “How does one account for the observation that it is 7 times more common among poets and artists? (Rich, Bradshaw, Mattingley, 2005; Ward, Yaro, Thompson-Lake, Sagiv, 2007; Domino, 1989).”  The first two of these studies investigated the occupations and hobbies of people with synesthesia, and did find that certain occupations and hobbies were indeed more common in synesthetes but they don’t cite the 7:1 ratio anywhere that I can see.  Also note that the studies didn’t show that “synesthesia is more common in artists and poets” it showed that “art and poetry are more likely to be pursued by synesthetes” (a subtle but potentially important difference).  The study of Domino (1989) did attempt to assess the prevalence of synesthesia in fine arts students and found a prevalence of 25%.  This is almost 7 times the latest population prevalence rate (of 4%, Simner et al 2006), but the problem is that Domino relied on self-report of synesthesia.  Simner et al. (2006) also found a self-report of about 25% giving a ratio of 1:1 when methods are equated.  Some clarification about how you got this number and the nature of the studies you cite would be helpful. 

===Response to reviewer 1===
We have restructured much of the article in accordance with reviewer 1's comments. The key change is a new category titled "Less studied variants and aspects of synesthesia" under which many of the sub-categories have been placed. We have also created a subheading for Touch-emotion synesthesia and removed the references to 'exotic forms.' This area also now includes the reference to our in-press paper on the topic.

In terms of art and synesthesia, we have changed this bullet to reflect the reviewers comments, and now reads "How does one account for the observation that poetry and art are more likely to be pursued by synesthetes?"