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I wouldn't have called these synaesthesia: Colored personalities Colored tastes Colored pain Colored odors Colored temperature but (of the list at the bot

by frig 17y ago

I wouldn't have called these synaesthesia: Colored personalities Colored tastes Colored pain Colored odors Colored temperature but (of the list at the bottom) those five are all things I've arguably experienced; that said it's hard to know what to say of these really as the distinction between a strong+reliable association and synaesthesia proper when you're talking about more-abstract "senses"; given that they're all color<->nonvisual perception the simpler explanation is probably just strong color associations, not synaesthasia. I was motivated to post b/c I was actually surprised that "colored personalities" were as high on the list of responses (or really on it at all); it's surprising it's (apparently) that common.

frig 17y ago
Ah for actual descriptions. "Colored personalities": within a few seconds of meeting someone in person I have a very strong colored visual image associated with them; this is mostly consistent (subsequent meetings with the same person will induce very similar visual images) and it feels like there are patterns to what sorts of people yield what colored image but there's no easily-summarizable rule like "sad people == blue, happy people == red". The sequence of perceptions is roughly: - step 1: see person, wait a few seconds - step 2: color-pattern visual image emerges - step 3: the color-pattern visual image itself triggers a reaction in me (at a subconscious/"gut feeling" level) about what I'll likely think of this person, eg particular colors+patterns will leave me with a feeling that I'll be more likely to get along with or not get along with a particular person, or that a particular person is/is not reliable, etc ...so it's basically an involuntary/automatic production of a colored visual pattern that then triggers a gestalt response (particular color patterns suggest a person's personality is composed of a particular weighted superposition of eigenpersonalities, so to speak). I'd say the accuracy is pretty high; I don't keep exact score but I'd ballpark these reactions as accurate in the high 80% range (or higher). Before I saw in the linked article that 6% or so of respondents mentioned "colored personalities" I wouldn't have thought to call this synaesthesia; a perceptual quirk, sure, but not synaesthesia proper. Even now, without knowing more about what the people claiming to have "colored personality" synaesthesia are actually claiming to perceive I'm not sure that what I just described is the same thing, really. The simplest interpretation of the underlying process would be that there's some mix of gestalt-ish perceptions of things like: gait, posture, body movement patterns, eye movement patterns, and facial expression movement patterns that can be perceived quickly and work as fairly reliable indicators of "personality"; the "synaesthasia" here works by having those gestalts get mapped to some combination of color + spatial pattern which then get superposed and presented. I figure the same perceptual process (sans colored image) is at work in everyone; assuming my interpretation of the underlying mechanic is correct the only "advantage" this form of "synaesthesia" provides is that such gestalt perceptions pass through a portion of my mind more easily accessible to conscious thought (and introspection), which makes it somewhat easier to introspectively modify my behavior ("my gut is telling me this person is a flake, but even so I need to be polite, so let me act polite." instead of unknowingly / unintentionally treating the person like I would treat a flake due to automatic perceptions) or to adjust what I'm doing to the specific person at hand ("clearly this person is like THIS so I should present this material like THAT"). Neither of those behavior adjustments requires this "synaesthesia"; it's just easier to remember to do it when there's a consciously-accessible visual flag reminding you to do it. That's rather lengthy I know but I don't know a shorter way to summarize a "synaesthesia" of something abstract ("personality"); I'm still on the fence as to whether it's best characterized as "synaesthesia" or just a perceptual / personality quirk, and short of ultra-granular real-time brain imaging becoming available I don't know that the distinction between "synaesthesia"/"perceptual quirk" will be cleanly resolvable. The others are simpler to summarize: "Colored tastes": most flavors have a color pattern associated with them that isn't really associated with the item's actual color. EG: ketchup is a dull grey blob fading to an undersaturated neon pink around the edges; it disappears by shrinking inwards (the pink fringe remaining constant width as it does so, until it becomes so small that there's no gray interior) until it vanishes. Whereas mustard is a shotgun-distributed bunch of deep deep green-brown rectangles (much wider than tall) with purplish-green grains in them that vanish first (to a deeper purple-green) then the surrounding rectangles fade to the same purple green then the green abruptly fades out leaving a hazy translucent unsaturated purple stain that itself slowly evaporates. Specific flavors' visuals are pretty consistent. Since you ask: this doesn't give me any particular ratatouille-style knack for cooking or any heightened enjoyment of food; it seems pretty useless generally. "Colored Pain": what's to summarize here? Examples are that extreme muscle fatigue is somewhat ultraviolet (eg a deep black-purple core with a very thin, very bright purple fringe around the deg) and is more ripply (like sand dunes) if it's on my backside and more like prison bars or a city skyline (lots of tall-but-narrow parallel vertical strips); tendonitis-style inflamed pinching is more white-yellow (white core yellow fringe) and ellipsoidal, with some overlay of radial banding and grid overlays...etc. "Colored Odors": odors have (nonsensical) colors attached. Vanilla is a circular white-yellow area with ripples like it'd have if a wind was blowing "upwards"; seaweed has a relaxing orange-yellow undulation to it; hotdogs have a white-yellow "jailbar" look, etc. "Colored temperatures": should really be "colored temperature + humidity + airflow pattern (eg how windy is it, how choppy is the wind)". Here the color is mostly about airflow and the various grid patterns are more about temperature. As with the longer explanation about "colored personalities" I would be hesitant to call these synaesthesia proper; unlike seeing letters in particular colors these perceptions are not directly overlaid on my normal visual field; they're just simply very prominently displayed in minds eye in response to various stimuli, and I think of them more as color associations then as synaesthetic perceptions. I've gone into this much detail b/c I was surprised to see these mentioned as often as they were by self-identified synaesthetes, so I figured may as well post the general experiences and see if anything turns up.

by frig 17y ago

frig 17y ago

Ah for actual descriptions. "Colored personalities": within a few seconds of meeting someone in person I have a very strong colored visual image associated with them; this is mostly consistent (subsequent meetings with the same person will induce very similar visual images) and it feels like there are patterns to what sorts of people yield what colored image but there's no easily-summarizable rule like "sad people == blue, happy people == red". The sequence of perceptions is roughly: - step 1: see person, wait a few seconds - step 2: color-pattern visual image emerges - step 3: the color-pattern visual image itself triggers a reaction in me (at a subconscious/"gut feeling" level) about what I'll likely think of this person, eg particular colors+patterns will leave me with a feeling that I'll be more likely to get along with or not get along with a particular person, or that a particular person is/is not reliable, etc ...so it's basically an involuntary/automatic production of a colored visual pattern that then triggers a gestalt response (particular color patterns suggest a person's personality is composed of a particular weighted superposition of eigenpersonalities, so to speak). I'd say the accuracy is pretty high; I don't keep exact score but I'd ballpark these reactions as accurate in the high 80% range (or higher). Before I saw in the linked article that 6% or so of respondents mentioned "colored personalities" I wouldn't have thought to call this synaesthesia; a perceptual quirk, sure, but not synaesthesia proper. Even now, without knowing more about what the people claiming to have "colored personality" synaesthesia are actually claiming to perceive I'm not sure that what I just described is the same thing, really. The simplest interpretation of the underlying process would be that there's some mix of gestalt-ish perceptions of things like: gait, posture, body movement patterns, eye movement patterns, and facial expression movement patterns that can be perceived quickly and work as fairly reliable indicators of "personality"; the "synaesthasia" here works by having those gestalts get mapped to some combination of color + spatial pattern which then get superposed and presented. I figure the same perceptual process (sans colored image) is at work in everyone; assuming my interpretation of the underlying mechanic is correct the only "advantage" this form of "synaesthesia" provides is that such gestalt perceptions pass through a portion of my mind more easily accessible to conscious thought (and introspection), which makes it somewhat easier to introspectively modify my behavior ("my gut is telling me this person is a flake, but even so I need to be polite, so let me act polite." instead of unknowingly / unintentionally treating the person like I would treat a flake due to automatic perceptions) or to adjust what I'm doing to the specific person at hand ("clearly this person is like THIS so I should present this material like THAT"). Neither of those behavior adjustments requires this "synaesthesia"; it's just easier to remember to do it when there's a consciously-accessible visual flag reminding you to do it. That's rather lengthy I know but I don't know a shorter way to summarize a "synaesthesia" of something abstract ("personality"); I'm still on the fence as to whether it's best characterized as "synaesthesia" or just a perceptual / personality quirk, and short of ultra-granular real-time brain imaging becoming available I don't know that the distinction between "synaesthesia"/"perceptual quirk" will be cleanly resolvable. The others are simpler to summarize: "Colored tastes": most flavors have a color pattern associated with them that isn't really associated with the item's actual color. EG: ketchup is a dull grey blob fading to an undersaturated neon pink around the edges; it disappears by shrinking inwards (the pink fringe remaining constant width as it does so, until it becomes so small that there's no gray interior) until it vanishes. Whereas mustard is a shotgun-distributed bunch of deep deep green-brown rectangles (much wider than tall) with purplish-green grains in them that vanish first (to a deeper purple-green) then the surrounding rectangles fade to the same purple green then the green abruptly fades out leaving a hazy translucent unsaturated purple stain that itself slowly evaporates. Specific flavors' visuals are pretty consistent. Since you ask: this doesn't give me any particular ratatouille-style knack for cooking or any heightened enjoyment of food; it seems pretty useless generally. "Colored Pain": what's to summarize here? Examples are that extreme muscle fatigue is somewhat ultraviolet (eg a deep black-purple core with a very thin, very bright purple fringe around the deg) and is more ripply (like sand dunes) if it's on my backside and more like prison bars or a city skyline (lots of tall-but-narrow parallel vertical strips); tendonitis-style inflamed pinching is more white-yellow (white core yellow fringe) and ellipsoidal, with some overlay of radial banding and grid overlays...etc. "Colored Odors": odors have (nonsensical) colors attached. Vanilla is a circular white-yellow area with ripples like it'd have if a wind was blowing "upwards"; seaweed has a relaxing orange-yellow undulation to it; hotdogs have a white-yellow "jailbar" look, etc. "Colored temperatures": should really be "colored temperature + humidity + airflow pattern (eg how windy is it, how choppy is the wind)". Here the color is mostly about airflow and the various grid patterns are more about temperature. As with the longer explanation about "colored personalities" I would be hesitant to call these synaesthesia proper; unlike seeing letters in particular colors these perceptions are not directly overlaid on my normal visual field; they're just simply very prominently displayed in minds eye in response to various stimuli, and I think of them more as color associations then as synaesthetic perceptions. I've gone into this much detail b/c I was surprised to see these mentioned as often as they were by self-identified synaesthetes, so I figured may as well post the general experiences and see if anything turns up.