Colored Hearing: Synesthesia as an Enhanced Reality
Every human being has a different perception of the world; these contrasting perceptions, including interactions with colors and sounds, have influenced many artists in producing remarkable works of art and literature. The great Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov describes in his autobiography the intriguing relationship he has with letters and colors, something he refers to as "colored hearing": "The color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outline. The long a of the English alphabet has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand mirror of o take care of the whites...Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of azure and mother-of-pearl." (Nabokov, 34). Nabokov's colored hearing is in fact the phenomenon of synesthesia - where two or more of the physical senses evoke concomitant feelings or perceptions.
Synesthesia is defined as a neurological state, although it is not an ailment and does not interfere with a synesthete's (one who experiences synesthesia) daily life or cognitive abilities. It is merely a case of perceptual difference, and most synesthetes think their experiences are neither positive nor negative, but sometimes even enjoyable.
There are five common types of synesthesia: grapheme-color, lexical-gustatory, ordinal-linguistic personification, musical-color, and number form. In grapheme-color synesthesia, the most common type of all, one perceives individual letters and numbers to have distinctive colors or hues, though no two synesthesia experiencing people will have the same colors for each letter. The much rarer lexical-gustatory synesthesia evokes different tastes of spoken words, like the word table triggering the taste of egg. Within ordinal-linguistic personification synesthesia, a synesthete links personalities for ordered series, like days of the week, letters, and months. For them, Tuesday might be passive, female, and colored pink, or 1984 might suggest a violent, untrusting personality. Because it is somewhat different from other types of synesthesia, and seemingly more common (children may feel this sort of personalization when learning language) it is more difficult to recognize. As the name might imply, musical-color synesthesia is when synesthetes view colors when listening to music, or even parts of music such as different tones or scales. Interestingly, the hue or color of a sound can be affected by varying pitches. Number form synesthesia allows those who experience it to form a mental number map that appears unintentionally whenever one thinks of a number. This type of synesthesia is speculated to occur because of a possible cross-activation of the brain's parietal lobe, since different areas of it process spatial and numerical cognition. In all of these forms, synesthetes usually have unchanged recognition of colors (a red A will always be red for them), though they all have very different experiences of how they perceive it and are affected by it.
Although synesthesia deals with such personal manners of perception, many of which every human being can "have" (like giving letters colors or personalities) due to their imagination or creative perspective, recognizing synesthesia is fairly uncomplicated. Neurologists or psychologists generally test and retest an individual over long periods of time on their perceptions of colored words and similar objects. Although synesthesia is easy to recognize and test, how to accurately diagnose and define it has been a source of debate for decades. In the last twenty years, researchers have refined the basic criteria for synesthesia; neurologists Kevin Dann and Richard Cytowic's definitions are currently the most accepted. They classify diagnosable synesthesia as having the following properties:
1. Synesthesia is involuntary and automatic. (Cytowic)
2. Synesthetic images are spatially extended, meaning they often have a definite "location". (Cytowic)
3. Synesthetic percepts are consistent and generic (i.e. simple rather than imagistic). (Cytowic)
4. Synesthesia is highly memorable. (Cytowic)
5. Synesthesia is laden with affect. (Dann)
6. Synesthesia is nonlinguistic and somewhat ineffable. (Dann)
7. Synesthesia occurs in people with normal, non-injured, non-diseased brains. (Cytowic, Dann, various).
As it is previously mentioned, synesthesia is believed to occur due to a cross-activation within areas of the brain. The area of the brain in which color processing occurs is beside the area which identifies numbers and letters; thus information may be mismanaged or cross-activated in both areas, creating the experience of synesthesia. It is speculated that synesthetes may also suffer from left-right brain confusion, and have difficulty in writing and performing mathematics. At the same time, synesthetes seem to enjoy and excel in creative activities, and offer an infinite source of research on the function of the human brain (and how information can "cross over" into other areas) as well as on states of consciousness.
Generally, synesthesia is speculated to be to an extent, hereditary. Nearly four percent of the population reports being a synesthete. These are naturally occurring, non-induced clusters of synesthesia within families, and are fairly common (for example, Nabokov's mother, like he, was a synesthete). A newer theory stemming from the hereditary synesthesia idea suggests that its mode of inheritance is due to sex - women tend to carry the "gene" for synesthesia, and are usually prevalent synesthetes. Supporting evidence of this "female gene" in synesthesia is the fact that all cases of inherited synesthesia have a female carrier or receptor, be it from mother to son or daughter, or father to daughter, but no male to male inheritance has ever been documented. Inherited synesthesia is not consistent, and like baldness, skips generations; the type of synesthesia that inherited synesthetes experience can also be vastly different.
There are also cases of adventitious synesthesia, or non-inherent synesthesia, which infer that this condition can be deliberately or naturally induced: individuals who consume psychoactive drugs, like lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and phencyclidine (PCP), those who experience synesthesia after a stroke or in conjunction to deafness and blindness have said to experience synesthesia or aspects of it. This sort of synesthesia "caused" by drugs or after a stroke is singular in which individuals who experience it only have synesthetic occurrences altering their musical-color, vision, or touch perceptions. Drug induced synesthesia does not last long, and since psychoactive drugs observably alter one's natural brain processes and perceptions, this type of synesthesia is not necessarily worth to research. However, non-inherent synesthesia does indicate that there is a significant link between consciousness and the condition.
Synesthesia is an uncommonly known condition, and although research and debate regarding its causes has been ongoing since the 1800s, we are nowhere near completely understanding all aspects of it. It is a distinct phenomenon with various consequences; it affects individuals and their perceptions of reality and life, and may be behind the creative genius of various artists, writers, and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Richard Feynman, Franz Liszt, Victor Hugo (American Synesthesia Association, site), and many others who, though have not been classified as full synesthetes, are pseudo-synesthetes, or merely incorporate synesthetic aspects into their work. Above all, synesthesia is also a prime example of our limited knowledge of the capability of the human brain as we know it. The simple fact that synesthesia exists can give us all hope that the key to discovering the immeasurable possibilities of our brains, and even realities, may be one day unlocked.
Bibliography
American Synesthesia Association. 2006. < http://www.synesthesia.info/abstracts.html>
Cytowic, R.E. Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses, 2nd ed. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002.
Cytowic, R.E. Synesthesia: Phenomenology And Neuropsychology
A Review of Current Knowledge. 2006. <http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.html>
Dann, K.T. Bright Colors Falsely Seen: Synaesthesia and the Search for Transcendent Knowledge. Yale University Press, 1998.
Eagleman, David M. The Laboratory for Perception and Action. 2006. <http://nba.uth.tmc.edu/homepage/eagleman/> (various links and articles from there as well).
Green, Jennifer. "Synaesthesia And Education." University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. 2006. Cambridge University. <http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/synaesthesia/whatis.html>.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Speak Memory. New York: Vintage International, 1989. 34.
UK Synaesthesia Association. 2006. <http://www.uksynaesthesia.com/>
* A link of note: If you think you might be a synesthete, you can take the Synesthesia Battery of tests and find out while contributing to research (pretty cool). Go to http://synesthete.org/.
Is this a form of synesthesia
I can be touched on parts of my body and can hear the touch that sounds to me like static on the am radio band? Is this some form of synesthesia?
I am a twin and we both have
I am a twin and we both have this:) we r 14, we have the most common form, associating colors with numbers and letters and words.. we r girls:D we thought it was normal until we asked our friends what colors they thought of the numbers and letters as and they were like whatru talking about lol, i recently found out its called synesthesia in my biology class. Im doing a project on synesthesia and i have to write a 4 page paper..luckyly im doing it with a partner but i still have to write 2 pages. :L
synesthesia "shading"
I have always seen words as shades, as opposed to specific colours. As an
example, I know 2 Percheron horses. One is called Charlie and the other is
William. Charlie is a very dark dapple gray, whereas William is a very pale
dapple. In my mind, the word Charlie is very pale and the word William is very dark. I have to make a conscious effort to call the dark horse his proper
light name and vice versa. While all words are shaded in my world, names are
particularly shaded. The letters a,e,i tend to be lighter than the letters o and u.
Is this a form of synesthesia?
Ordinal Linguistic Personification
I recently found out that I also have OLP. I have always seen letters, numbers (1 to 9), Days and Months as having personalities with letters having the strongest. As mentioned by someone else I don't think about the personalities I just see, hear or think about a letter and I know what kind of personality it has immediately. Plus, some letters have stronger or weaker personalities and they combine in words so that I can tell what the word's personality is. I found out that I was different whilst studying A-Level French. I was given a test (and forgive me if this is bragging) because I have always had a bizarrely large vocabulary, and of the 300 word test (most of which I had never seen) I got 282 right because I knew what they were from their personalities and their feel (the feeling that you get when you say them (force words are a pressure in your head, words such as velvet make my finger tips tingle). There is a couple of downsides though; like in maths. It annoys me doing calculations because some numbers shouldn't go together (like 7 and 3) and I hate having to put them together. I was also wondering if any one else got serious migraines and whether there was a link between synesthesia and migraines. I also wanted to say that my father has spatial synesthesia (with numbers appearing around him) and I have synesthesia (his son) so that is a male to male passing of synesthesia,
Looking forward to your response,
James
Ordinal Lunguistic personification
I just found out one week ago that I have OLP. I thought that everybody looks at numbers,letters, days, months etc in a personified way. Generally when I deal,e.g. with numbers in maths, I don't really THINK a lot about their personalities, but I FEEL them... it's like when you talk with a person, you don't necessarily think of their personality, but you FEEL how is to eb with them, their colour, their texture somehow. But if you think more about them, their traits just spring in your mind.
For me 9 is a suave, a bit sensual, tall woman with good manner and a bit manipulative, but this mostly in oublic, when she's with her husband she gets possesive and manipulates him a bit too much. I have the feeling that 8 is teh husband, but when I think of 8 I thiink of a short, muscular, anrgy man, who likes physical exercise. Both 9 and 8 are dark, but 9 in an elegant way. Single numbers have more defined personalities, but all the numbers have personalities. Very big numbers are defined by teh digits which make the most impression on me. For example I love 1608. it's down to earth, interesting, original, full of life, natural, a bit sophisticated. The 6 makes it elegant, while 8 stable. But 6 and 8 give it a strong personality. 0 is just so it's not so crowded, so it's a bit clear, not simple, just clear. The 1 is necessary again to make the personality balanced and not too pushy. For me 6 is female, 8 is male. But as 6 it's in the beginning it has a stronger effect so overall it's feminine. But the 8 messes a bit up...
Letters are just as powerful as numbers, but less hazy. A is beatiful, intelligent, natural, suave, tall female who smiles a lot. F is arogant, a bit lazy, intelligent but too vain (male). R is very a high school, popular guy, who's very humorous and looks good, but thinks himself a bit too high. but generally sympathetic and loves to joke a lot. Happy. I hate G though, it's so pushy and never likes anything (male).
And months I just simply adore Novemner. it's calculated, original, relaxed but intelectually eager, observes quickly everything, beautiful male of about 25-30 years old. Very intelligent. September is a warm female, suave and pleasant enough. Very deep, brown eyes and deep personality. She has long hair.
I thought that everybody thought liek this about stuff, so it didn't occur to me till last week, when I read an article about synesthesia and I saw that there is Ordinal linguistic personification. I began to have suspitions, but I thought that mine is a mild form as while I'm working with numbers I have only the feeling. but when I thought more about them I realised how complex people tehy are. Oh, I have that in the word 'are' e is by r, because e is so lazy and unpleasant and intelectually inferior to r, who's a bit vain. But a is nice enough to forgive them and is just going along. r feels attracted by a, and a by r, but thinks him a bit too reckless and young.
huh, I wrote a bit too much. I hate c by h. But I like c alone, and I really really like h. But enough for now... I hate o... w is nice-ish.
Me too!
I have also had similar experiences with numbers and letters, but I haven't thought it unusual or have been diagnosed with OLP. Sometimes I even associate numbers and letters together...
Colored-Hearing Synesthesia Research in New York City
Hi Everyone,
My name is Cordelia Sendax and I am conducting a study on Colored-Hearing Synesthetes
at City College in Manhattan, NY under the guidance of Professor John Foxe, the director
of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at CCNY. The study is exploring the fundamental
perceptual and physiological differences between synesthetes and non-synesthetes during
auditory-visual integration. Subject participation will include letting us record your brain
activity using a non-invasive electrical recording device called the electroencephalograph.
The experiment task is a simple reaction time task, in which you will be presented either a
red circle, a 1000 Hz tone, or both from a computer screen and will be asked to make a
button press response upon stimulus recognition. The experiment will take around 1-1.5
hours. While the recording session will take only about 1.5 hours, total time spent at the
lab will be around 4 hours, as putting on and taking off the EEG cap will
take some time, as will making some necessary adjustments to the cap
during the recording session. Study compensation is $12 per hour. If you're
interested in potentially participating in the study and live near the NY Tri-State area or
will be visiting this area, please email me at csendax@hotmail.com or call me at 1-646-
872-8346 so that you can be considered for study participation. I hope to hear from many
of you soon!
Thanks!
Cordelia Sendax
Ordinal Linguistic Personification
Hello. I think, i have OLP. For example, 0 is moron and fat boy. 1 likes him. 1 has got leader spirit. 2 is a teenage girl. 3 is short boy. 4 is a rebellious woman, but she is good. 6 is sexy woman, 9 is sweet and so beautiful woman. But 6 always attack 9. 6 hates 9. Because, 9 is so beautiful, but 6 doesn't be jealous. Just hates her. 7 is umm... blonde man. 7 likes 6 and 9. 5 is a normal handsome man. 8 is muscular man(like Captain America). Also, i attach numbers to everybody. For example, i attach number 2 to teenage girls. I attach number 9 to so beautiful girls. Also, the number 11 is tall and innocent teenager. And also, the number 4 symbolises passion and rage. 6 symbolises sex. 5 symbolises... umm... how i explainnn... 5 symbolises nastiness. 1 symbolises leadership, etc... And also, the some letters have personifications. For example, A has got leader spirit too. B is so innocent male. C is a blonde girl. Ç(Yes, Ç. Ç exist in Turkish Alphabet.) is a ugly woman, etc... Is this Ordinal Linguistic Personification form of the Synesthesia or I just imagine these things? Maybe, I haven't synesthesia. I don't know.
Colored Hearing: Synesthesia as an Enhanced Reality
Hi my name is Elizabeth,
In what I've read I can't be classified as any one specific Synesthete, but I am capable of some color-letter/number Synesthesia.I see months as a half circle in front of me, have personalities for numbers/letters/symbols/days of the week/months, have empathy for others to the point of feeling what their feeling(physically,emotional, or spiritually), have a hard time understanding most anything unless I first experience it using the 5 senses(but then I'm hard pressed to forgot it), people have mentioned that I'm a walking text book but I remain unmoved and still think I don't fully understand most of.... what I know. Have had "perfect pitch" since before I can remember(smaller then 4yrs.). And even came up with the oddest phrases, even at the age of 2 and a half, "mom, I want to be soaking warm," etc..
All my life I've struggled with academics, mainly spelling, reading, writing, and understanding what people say. Spelling is hard because when I try to spell by hand I get caught up in the letters' personality and they never seem to fit with their companions unless in military computer type/print(this resulted in having to practice the word oh so many times). Reading out loud is a battle, words come to life by the way I said them. Reading different print changes the meaning of the word, out loud or silent, color or a different shade of black(because it is different from the way I learned the word). tone of voice changes a word's meaning which effects how I perceive what people mean(resulting in misunderstanding , having them repeat, or my mind taking me on an imagination ride of pictures, colors, and stories). writing(ex. a paper) is hard unless I'm writing on something using a combination of the five senses and from my experience. To extract information from other's research for a paper is near impossible for me. the first time I tried I had a nervous brake down from trying so hard and now know why(without picturing someone else's experience, either by imagination or real life, I can't combine it with my own unless I can make it make sense).
Oh, and when someone says a word multiple times in different tones it never means the something to me, each has it's own meaning(and when "over played," so to say, it can be torture to the point of tears)
All my life people have said how unique my view points and one liners are, and I've always wanted to know myself better. But now that I've found the closest thing to defining me it still seem out of reach.
Is there any way you could enlighten, classify, or define "me" better?
Ordinal linguistic personification
Hi. I have Ordinal linguistic personification. It means that that numbers letters days and months all have there own specific personalities. For instance i could tell you that 6 is shy and i guess you could say a "doormat". She is a 12 year old girl who just "goes with the flow."She doesn't get along with seven who is an ill tempered 14 year old boy who is a bit of a bully to all the numbers execpt number nine.Number nine and seven are friends but number nine is a few years older than 7 and comes from a very rich family unlike 6. Thats just a small part of what i go through every day. I always hated math cause i didn't want to put certain numbers together in the same equation. That's just my life though.
research project
hello my name is jil and i am doing a research project for my 11th grade eng. class. i am doing my report on the different forms of synesthesia and i was wondering if it is not to much trouble could you please tell me what its like having ordinal linguistic personification??i think it would be great to hear it first hand.i have so many questions for you such as:
1. if the number is negative does it effect what you think of it??
2.what if the number is huge such as 5 billion.does that change anything??
3.does anyone in your family have it??
4.how long was it before you noticed that not everyone thought of numbers the same as you??
Hi, Dene Sorry for the late
music-color synesthesia
Musical-Color Synesthesia
Your daughter is most likely a synesthete. I have the same form of synesthesia and its actually quite enjoyable. The best thing you can do for her is to get her tested via CAT scan. This will tell if she is deffinitely a synesthete or not.
synesthesia
Hi Christiane. My partner, Annabella, is in your bio class and shared your writing on synesthesia with me because I am a synesthete. My letters, words, months and numbers are colored. I always thought this was normal and common until I read about synesthesia a few years back. I had assumed everyone had colored hearing. I'm wondering what sparked your interest in synesthesia, whether you are a synesthete, or possibly someone you know. Looking forward to hearing from you, Dene
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