Synesthesia - A sensation produced in one modality (e.g. taste, vision, smell) when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color (http://www.dictionary.com/).
The following is an article on the reality of synesthesia that was published in "Science Daily" on July 26, 2007.
Hearing Colors And Seeing Sounds: How Real Is Synesthesia?
In the psychological phenomenon known as "synesthesia," individuals' sensory systems are a bit more intertwined than usual. Some people, for example, report seeing colors when musical notes are played.
One of the most common forms [of synesthesia] is grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters or numbers (collectively called "graphemes") are highlighted with particular colors. Although synesthesia has been well documented, it is unknown whether these experiences, reported as vivid and realistic, are actually being perceived or if they are a byproduct of some other psychological mechanism such as memory.
New research published in the June issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, sheds some light on the veracity [truth] of these perceptions.
Danko Nikolic, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, and his colleagues relied on a variation of a classic psychological method known as the Stroop task to test this. In this task, participants must name the color of the font that a color word is printed in. For example, if the word "blue" was printed in red ink, the participant would have to say "red" -- a moderately difficult task that requires some mental gymnastics.
To understand Nikolic's version of the experiment, a rudimentary understanding of color perception is required: When anyone views a particular color, specific neurons in the visual cortex area of our brain are activated. These specific neurons will deactivate, however, if a color from the opposite end of the spectrum is presented. So, any neuron activated when the color blue is present will deactivate when it's exact opposite, yellow, comes into the visual field.
Using this logic, Nikolic presented grapheme-color synesthetes with their five most color eliciting letters or numbers. The color of the letter or number was either the same as its common association (congruent), different but not completely opposite of the color association (incongruent independent), or on the opposite end of the spectrum from the associated color (opponent incongruent). The researchers then measured how long it took the participants to name the color of the grapheme.
As expected, opponent incongruent colors made it quite difficult for individuals with grapheme-color synesthesia to respond quickly. It took participants much longer to name opponent incongruent colors than independent incongruent colors. Congruent colors -- colors that matched the association -- actually facilitated the process of naming the colors.
In a separate experiment, the researchers found that this color-opponency system did not work for memories. They presented the same participants with pictures of objects that a color is commonly associated with (a lemon, for example). But like the previous experiment, the objects were in unexpected colors. Reaction times in this experiment were significantly less impeded by the color change and did not differ from reaction times of control subjects who were not synesthetes. Coupled with the results from the first experiment, these findings suggest that synesthetic colors are perceived in a realistic way, just as synesthetes report.
This article can be accessed at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070724113711.htm
It seems to me that although synesthesia is relatively rare, the people who experience it are genuine: their perceptions are consistent and replicable.
For information on the Stroop effect, and to try the Stroop task, click the following link: http://www.snre.umich.edu/eplab/demos/st0/stroopdesc.html#Static%20Demonstration
The Stroop task demo is toward the bottom of the page. The "return" button mentioned in the directions is the "enter" button on the keyboard.
Also, for an interesting self-report of the synesthetic perspective, check out letter-color synesthete Cassidy Curtis' page. Cassidy has mapped out the letters of the alphabet and numbers 1-9 in the colors that they appear to her. Interestingly, the color Cassidy perceives in a given letter changes depending on several factors, including its context, her semantical understanding of its context, the language in which it appears, word length and composition, etc. Cassidy has provided color-maps for each circumstance: http://otherthings.com/uw/syn/
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So, I'm a bit confused. I've taken those silly little tests before where the word says orange in green letters and your suppose to say what color the word is in. For some reason it takes me a little while longer before I can say the letters are in red but I don't know why, does that mean I have some minor form of Synesthesia? I was reading up on this topic and it says that people with this diagnosis can "hear colors, feel sounds and taste shapes" since all of these things make no sense at all I wonder how much Synesthesia affects an individuals daily life. I would assume that if I were to wake up and think I can feel sounds then I'd be a bit frightened but if things like this are normal for someone then I suppose it's okay. I wonder if people who openly speak about their Synesthesia fear that other people will think they're crazy because I personally would?
ReplyDeleteI think that when non-synesthetes hear about synesthesia or think about it, we tend to imagine exagerated sensory experiences. For example, a synesthete that has shape-taste synesthesia might not taste a triangle as if triangles had their own taste that non-synesthetes can never experience; rather; the sight of a triangle or other shape ellicits an arbitrary taste sensation in the synesthete's mouth. In other words, a synesthete doesn't so much "taste a triangle" as he/she pairs some other taste - cinnamon, for example - with the sight of a triangle; the sight of a shape ellicts a taste sensation like cinnamon. Similarly, a person with sound-touch synesthesia might feel an arbitrary sensation - for example, numbness, temperature change, "pins and needles", etc. - when he/she hears a certain song or sound. Sound-color synesthetes often see colors or shapes that appear to move around and then fade when the sound stimulus - which can be anything from a voice to music to a dog barking - ends. When sound-color synesthetes describe their experiences, they speak of the colors and shapes appearing in front of them on a sort of imaginary screen. I imagine it's something like when you look at a bright light and then turn away and blink your eyes; oftentimes you see the compliment color of the light you were looking at assume the shape of the light source. For synesthetes, it's more like the sound-graphs that accompany music in mediaplayer. Wikipedia has some good descriptions of several of the common types of synesthesia, but there's a ton of info. available online. I suggest you check out synesthete Cassidy's self-report of her letter-color experiences at http://otherthings.com/uw/syn/
ReplyDeleteAlso, a variation of the stroop task was used by Nikolic in his research. He was trying to determine whether synesthetes actually perceived the colors they claimed to perceive when they saw certain letters, or if they were being tricked by some memory-related mechanism. The stroop task in it's traditional form - the form you've experienced it in - is not a test for letter-color synesthesia.
Finally, I get the sense that most people with some form of synesthesia regard it as a blessing. You might find it interesting that (according to Wikipedia) synesthetes show the same sound-color trends as non-synesthetes do. For example, both groups say that loud tones are brighter than soft tones and that lower tones are darker than higher tones. Neat, huh?