Psychol. Pl. -æ. Also synes-. [mod.L., f. Gr. σύν SYN- + stem αἱσθε- to feel, perceive, after anæsthesia.] a. A sensation in one part of the body produced by a stimulus applied to another part. b. Agreement of the feelings or emotions of different individuals, as a stage in the development of sympathy. c. Production, from a sense-impression of one kind, of an associated mental image of a sense-impression of another kind: see quot. 1903.
1891. Cent. Dict., Synæsthesia, synesthesia, the production of a sensation located in one place when another place is stimulated.
1897. trans. Ribot’s Psychol. Emotions, II. iv. 231. If … we try to follow the evolution of sympathy … we distinguish three principal phases. The first, or physiological, consists in an agreement of motor tendencies, a synergia; the second, or psychological, consists in an agreement of the emotional states, a synæsthesia; the third, or intellectual, results from a community of representations or ideas.
1903. F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality, I. p. xl. Vestiges of the primitive undifferentiated sensitivity persist in the form of synæsthesiæ, e. g. when the hearing of an external sound carries with it, by some arbitrary association of ideas, the seeing of some form or colour.
So ǁ Synæsthesis [mod.L., a. Gr. συναίσθησις joint perception]: see quot.
1881. Mivart, Cat, 386, note. The sum-total of the mental action of a rational animal may be called its noesis, which will be the analogue of the synesthesis or sum-total of the felt neural psychoses of an irrational animal.
