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Synesthesia, at first blush, seems to be something that would be very difficult to study, since it involves the subjective experience of the subject. If you cla

by joeyo 17y ago

Synesthesia, at first blush, seems to be something that would be very difficult to study, since it involves the subjective experience of the subject. If you claim to see certain numbers in color, I either have to take your word for it or declare you crazy. But actually there are some very clever tests that have been developed that provide some confirmation that synesthesia is a real effect. Number-color synesthetes can very rapidly identify a shape hidden in this image: http://mindbluff.com/syn3.gif http://mindbluff.com/syn3.gif while non-synesthetes must do a very slow manual search (the shape is hi-lighted here: http://mindbluff.com/syn4.gif http://mindbluff.com/syn4.gif). The theory of cross-wiring as the neuronal basis of synesthesia very suggestive and there may be other instances of it in other domains. For example, on the human sensory homunculus, the representation for the feet and toes are located right beside the representation for the genitals. Some degree of cross-wiring in that region could explain foot fetishes. Likewise the sensory-cortical representation of the nipple is adjacent to the earlobe, and so on and so forth.

jsdalton 17y ago
Interesting. I have number-color synesthesia but that test does nothing for me; I couldn't make out the image at all. For that test to work I would think that one would literally have to "see" the color of a number almost as though it were a hallucination. I can only speak for myself obviously, but for me a number just invokes a certain color in my mind, almost as though the number has an aura. Two, for example, is blue-green, whereas five is just sort of black on white. But looking at a grey 2 on a background, I just see a grey 2 on a background... nothing more, unfortunately. It was interesting nonetheless, just thought I'd share my own experience.
- joeyo 17y ago
  I suspect that there are varying degrees of synesthesia that range from the aura you describe to full-on hallucination. I have a friend that has an aural-color synesthesia who tells me that listening to music in the car (or for that matter having a conversation) is very difficult because the colors get in the way of her driving. In any event, perhaps even in your case you could perform that test (or another like it) statistically significantly faster than persons without synesthesia.

by joeyo 17y ago

jsdalton 17y ago

Interesting. I have number-color synesthesia but that test does nothing for me; I couldn't make out the image at all. For that test to work I would think that one would literally have to "see" the color of a number almost as though it were a hallucination. I can only speak for myself obviously, but for me a number just invokes a certain color in my mind, almost as though the number has an aura. Two, for example, is blue-green, whereas five is just sort of black on white. But looking at a grey 2 on a background, I just see a grey 2 on a background... nothing more, unfortunately. It was interesting nonetheless, just thought I'd share my own experience.

joeyo 17y ago
I suspect that there are varying degrees of synesthesia that range from the aura you describe to full-on hallucination. I have a friend that has an aural-color synesthesia who tells me that listening to music in the car (or for that matter having a conversation) is very difficult because the colors get in the way of her driving. In any event, perhaps even in your case you could perform that test (or another like it) statistically significantly faster than persons without synesthesia.