They say that theoretical knowledge is established much better if it is accompanied by good practice, or in my specific case, with the inadvertent “discovery” of a good first-person clinical example.
As an established habit, I was excitedly telling my classmates the most curious thing I learned that same day in neuropsychology class. I began to comment that the teacher had told us that there were people who every time they thought about a number they associated it with a certain color, that is, they believed that each number had a fixed color and that this knowledge was shared by the rest of the people. people.
He couldn’t believe that the rest of the people didn’t associate the number two with yellow.
In response to this explanation, one of my colleagues, Isa Soria, jumps out: “Yes, if each number has its color… two is yellow… seven is green… right?” Everyone else present there was amazed, and what can we say about Isa, they couldn’t believe that the rest of the people didn’t relate the number two with yellow, seven with green, etc. It was an amazing experience to be able to witness the discovery of said “rarity” in first person.
What happens to Isa is a sensory-perceptive disorder in which perception is agglutinated, that is, the stimulus through one of the senses (hearing) simultaneously causes the sensation in another (sight); It is this mixture of the senses that is known as synesthesia. Associating numbers or letters with colors is one of the most frequent synesthesias, as well as music evoking a certain color, although there are also synesthetic people who, in response to touch, perceive smells (can you imagine that every time your partner caress (you smell coffee?) or that listening to a saxophonist play tastes like honey. That is, any of the senses can be involved in synesthesias.
One of the most common synesthesias is associating numbers with colors.
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It is common that if we have never heard of this sensory-perceptive disorder before, we distrust what a synesthetic person is telling us and we do not believe them, but no, they are not lying. What the synesthetic person perceives spontaneously is real, occurs involuntarily and is particular to each person.
That is, Isa is associated with the number two being yellow, while another synesthetic person will have that same number associated with another color, for example, purple. Note that this phenomenon will accompany the person “for life”, since synesthesias last over time and are stable, that is, if a synesthete associates the touch of his lovebird with the smell of jasmine, he will smell like jasmine every time he caresses it. to his lovebird.
Can you imagine that every time your partner caresses you you smell like coffee?
As another curious characteristic of synesthetic perceptions, it is worth noting that the memory of synesthetic (secondary) perception is often more powerful than the primary one, so it is not surprising that a synesthete who associates a certain smell with a person’s name will remember the name of a person. name of the smell rather than the name of the person.
What causes it?
Being a real perception, as has already been pointed out, it should be able to be explained on neuroanatomical bases, right?
In response to this, and according to Julia A. Nunn (2002), the brains of synesthetes are different, although she points out that this difference should not be considered brain damage. Most of the theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon rely on a “crossing of cables” between the areas of the brain that in people without this perceptual disorder are incommunicated and precisely this “crossing of cables” allows the brain of synesthetes to communication between these areas. This “crossing of wires” would explain how when a synesthetic person hears spoken words, the parts of the brain responsible for color are activated and used, suggesting that the word centers are communicating with the color centers.
More data…
This type of perception disorder had the label of uncommon, since according to the reference study to date (Baron-Cohen et al, 1996) a prevalence was estimated that ranged between at least one per 2000 people and according to the most recent study Recently (Rich et al, 2005) the prevalence was around 0.024%. Likewise, it was also stipulated that it occurred more in women than in men in a ratio of 6:1 according to the Baron-Cohen study or in a ratio of 6:2 according to Rich’s study. However, the data provided by the latest study by Dr Julia Simner, from Edinburgh, and Professor Jamie Ward, from Sussex, have shown that this disorder is much more prevalent than previously believed (up to 88% more , that is, around 4.4% of the general population) and that there is not such a strong asymmetry in the distribution of synesthesia between the sexes, with a female:male ratio of 1.1:1.
the prevalence would be 4.4% of the general population
The fact that synesthesia occurs in several members of the same family (Asher, JE et al. 2009) indicates that it more than likely has a genetic component. In this regard, it should be noted that synesthesia can skip generations, the immediate family relationship not being necessary (you can have a distant uncle with whom you share the sensory-perceptive disorder) and as already mentioned, the different synesthetic members of the family can manifest different forms of synesthesia, so while the father colors his letters his daughter knows the words.
Synesthesia… defect or virtue?…
I leave it to your free choice… and to make your decision easier, I attach some words from Oliver Messiaen, one of the most influential French composers of the 20th century and who was synesthetic: he saw colors when he listened to music. For him, music was divided into music with color and music without color. What’s more, in some of the scores he wrote down the colors of the music in order to help the director of the interpretation.
To say goodbye, I leave you a 1:58 minute interview with James Wannerton titled “I chose my girlfriends by the flavor of their names”:
As I mentioned before and taking into account that this perception disorder is more common than was thought according to the data provided by the latest studies, perhaps some of you have experienced what happened to Isa and through reading this article you have discovered that you are synesthetes, and if so, please do not hesitate to share the discovery with all of us.
*Dedicated with love to all the curious and to Isa Soria, nicknamed Spiderman; Yes, in all the Residence Halls having a nickname is something that is included in the admission clause, a kiss from the Green Goblin 😉
Related video:
Article previously published on the psychologist’s blog and transferred to .
References:
Alonso, A. (2011). The color of sounds. Madrid Spain. Publisher: Vision Books.
Asher, J.E. et al (2009). A Whole-Genome Scan and Fine-Mapping Linkage Study of Auditory-Visual Synesthesia Reveals Evidence of Linkage to Chromosomes 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12. Am. J. Hum. Genet. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.01.012.
Baron-Cohen S, Burt L, Smith-Laittan F, Harrison J, Bolton P. (1996). Synaesthesia: prevalence and familiality. Perception, 25: 1073–9.
Nunn, JA, Gregory, LJ, Brammer, M., Williams, SC, Parslow, DM, Morgan, MJ, Morris, RG, Bullmore, ET, Baron-Cohen, S. & Gray, JA (2002) Functional magnetic resonance imaging of synesthesia: activation of V4 ⁄ V8 by spoken words. Nature Neuroscience, 5: 371-375.
Rich AN, Bradshaw JL, Mattingley JB (2005). A systematic, large-scale study of synaesthesia: implications for the role of early experience in lexical-color associations. Cognition 98 53–58 10.1016/j.cognition.2004.11.003.
Simner, J., Mulvenna, C., Sagiv, N., Tsakanikos, E., Witherby, S.A., Fraser, C., Scott, K, & Ward, J. (2006). Synesthesia: The prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. Journal of Perception, 35, 1024-1033.