Thursday, February 10, 2011

Synesthesia and more?

First off I'd like to list the different types of synesthesia from most common to least common.

Grapheme → color synesthesia: This is where colors and letters or numbers are associated. So the letter A is red. The letter B blue. And so forth. Like this...
Sound → color: Where a sound like music or as simple as dishes clattering or dogs barking causes visualization of color. Sometimes this is only w/ music sometimes not. Basically like sound fireworks so to speak.

Number form: Where numbers form around everyday objects. Sorta like a perma ruler for your eyes.

Personification: Examples of this would be T's are generally grabby ungenerous creatures. Or the synthete would say 4 I can trust but 3 is dishonest.

And finally the rarest of types...
Lexical → gustatory: Where individual words evoke taste sensations. F sounds trigger the taste of sherbet or S sounds trigger mince pie.

We all may have this ability while it isn't an automatic response in myself I can often concentrate and 'imagine' what a word would taste like. I do this while grocery shopping I hear the word and imagine the taste. I even blend taste and imagine how the food would taste when it was prepared together. Or colors and personifying them. Such as red to me is controlling Purple is mystical and Black is forsaken. So I implore you to look into this a little more and see how you can enhance your own perception of this wonderful world. We're more capable then we give ourselves credit. Also I'd like feed back... after reading this are you aware of something that may be similar to any of these things? Is it automatic or must you concentrate on making it work. Enlighten me as I have you my fellow bloggers. And have a colorful day.

16 comments:

  1. Yeah synthesia is an incredibly cool disorder. It's thought to be caused by abnormal connections between the visual recognition of characters and the color areas of the brain, well for graphemes anyway. I don't have an article about synthesia, but you should check out my blog http://thecogsci.blogspot.com/

    great post!

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  2. interesting, ive never heard of synesthesia before

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  3. That is some interesting stuff I've never heard anything before. Thanks for sharing

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  4. after having read about this multiple times i can honestly say that i wish i had this.

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  5. My in-laws have a neighbor, about 10 years old, who plays piano by ear, no coaching or teaching ever, and can repeat a song after one hearing. She says she sees/hears the notes as colored birds, and is able to figure out where the birds go in relation to the keys.

    Interesting post. Will be coming back for more.

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  6. I think for some people its definately a natural ability to feel what the next note will be.

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  7. This is pretty awesome, it's a subtle part of my life i tend not to pay too much attention to unless i'm high as fuhhhh lol. But the one that i realized that i thought was kinda cool in a way was how i thought white was a color that tasted disgusting to me and I correlated it with the memory of this white medicine i had to take as a child. It all made sense to me.

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  8. I always wondered how someone with Synesthesia would know they had it - since this sort of thing would seem totally normal to them. Good post!

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  9. Even though it is a serious disorder, and not a laughing matter... I lol'd at Personification. 3's a bastard...

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  10. this would be awesome especially the numbers being everywhere. it's like having military binoculars for eyes. knowing distance and measurements by just looking at them

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  11. I feel that green = sour but its probably because of green apple flavored candy, so I may be cheating

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  12. Lexical → gustatory: sounds interesting, as long as you don't tast anything nasty whenever someone says something wierd...

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  13. That was a pretty interesting article you wrote here.

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