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Man Sees, Hears Words in Color
iWon News ^ | 03/18/2002 | PAUL RECER

Posted on 03/18/2002 5:05:06 PM PST by grimalkin

For one middle-aged man, "two" looks blue, but "2" is orange. And while "3" appears pink, "5" is green.

The man has synesthesia - a phenomenon in which printed words and numbers burst with color, flavors take on shapes and the spoken language turns into a mental rainbow.

For some people with synesthesia, say researchers, a newspaper is never black and white - it's red, orange, blue, beige, pink and green all over.

"This is an alternate perception," said Thomas J. Palmeri, a Vanderbilt University psychologist and the first author of a study reporting on the tests given to one man. "He is normal - a highly successful, intelligent man and he suffers no problems from this unique wiring of the brain."

The study, appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explores multi-chromatic world of a man identified only as W.O. The man, a university professor of medicine, did not respond to requests for a direct interview.

Palmeri said researchers are starting to realize that W.O. is just one of a large number of people with synesthesia, many of whom take joy in this rich symphony of sensations.

"They often experience a great deal of pleasure from this altered perception," said Edward M. Hubbard, a synesthesia researcher at the University of California, San Diego.

For W.O., his synesthesia helped make learning the complex words of science easy - when the colors weren't distracting him from study, Palmeri said.

"He sees a palette of different colors when he reads and sometimes he is more interested in how pretty the page looks than what the words say," he said.

In the Proceedings study, Palmeri, Randolph Blake and other Vanderbilt researchers put W.O. through a series of tests.

Palmeri said that W.O. sees all printed words in colors, sometimes letter-by-letter and sometimes syllable-by-syllable. Short words have a single color while long words may have many.

When W.O. was given a list of 100 words printed in black and white, he said each one had a specific color. When the list was presented a second time, weeks later, W.O. gave most words the same color, missing only some that were either beige or off-white.

"These associations are highly reliable," said Blake. "W.O. says that the colors have stayed the same all his life and our observations lend credence to the claim."

In W.O.'s view, each numeral, except for zero and one, has a color even if printed in black and white.

When the researchers presented an image of the number 5 made up of much smaller number 2s, W.O. saw the whole image as a five and it appeared green. However, when he looked at the small 2s that made up the image, each of those numerals were orange.

When the numbers were written out - such as two - they assumed another color.

And the hues prompted when W.O. hears words are generally the same as those he sees when the words are printed, Palmeri said.

Hubbard said the experiments with W.O. match some performed in his lab that show synesthesians see colors when others see only black and white.

Just how W.O. perceives this color is difficult to understand, the researchers said.

"He tries to describe it to me and I still can't appreciate it. It's like trying to describe colors to a person who can't see them," said Palmeri. "How could you describe color to a blind person? You really can't."

Some researchers believe that about one in every 25,000 people has synesthesia, Palmeri said. Some studies suggest it may be much more common - closer to about one in every 200 people, Hubbard said.

One theory holds that the perception is inherited. W.O.'s mother, maternal grandfather and great uncle also experience synesthesia, but none of his siblings or children do.

Hubbard said that so little is known about synesthesia because many people won't admit it. Others, however, are surprised to learn that they are unusual.

It's believed that synesthesia occurs because some parts of the brain that perceive color are very close to parts to process speech, language and music, Hubbard said.

---

On the Net:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org/

Synesthesia: http://www.ncu.edu.tw/~daysa/synesthesia.htm

Vanderbilt: http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: health; synesthesia
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Comment #21 Removed by Moderator

To: ProudGOP
I wonder what curse words look like.

Blue!

22 posted on 03/18/2002 6:55:18 PM PST by bootless
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To: grimalkin
I wonder if this condition is related to other perception alterations, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia? I also wonder how well his clothes match or if it is only print that alters in color....
23 posted on 03/18/2002 7:25:21 PM PST by lsee
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To: hole_n_one
See musical notes drift out of the speakers too?
24 posted on 03/18/2002 7:31:28 PM PST by LarryLied
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To: LarryLied
See musical notes drift out of the speakers too?

Forget the sound of music............Julie Andrews was doing a strip tease!

25 posted on 03/18/2002 7:34:29 PM PST by hole_n_one
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To: grimalkin
"Swallowing colors of the sounds I hear...am I such a crazy guy? You bet!"
Ozzy Osborn - Flying High Again

Man, Ozzy had this figured out decades ago!

26 posted on 03/18/2002 7:34:30 PM PST by Texas2step
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To: grimalkin
My daughter, now 18, has this. When she was little she would talk about it, mentioning observations about words being this color or that color so matter-of-factly -- she really assumed everyone saw/perceived things the same way she did. She was floored when I told her at about 5 or 6 that not everyone saw words in color. Her synesthesia also causes her to "see" people as shapes; they are categorized somehow as "triangles" "ovals" "circles" etc. There are a lot of other areas where one sense blends into another (individual songs are seasons, for instance). It's really interesting. She is extremely bright and creative, and it doesn't seem to affect anything other than as a source of family joshing.
27 posted on 03/18/2002 7:53:34 PM PST by M. Thatcher
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To: lsee
This is somewhat related to some forms of dyslexia (note the weasel words.) For some people, numbers exist in certain places, for example maybe linearly 23,1,27,14,444,33,2,0,17, etc. For others the numbers are in a two-dimensional array. (I don't know of people who see numbers laid out in three or more dimensions.) These people have trouble learning arithmetic because the operations on the numbers are not related to their idiosyncratic order. They must learn arithmetic algorithmically and ofter have no intuitive feel for magnitudes. Other people see days of the week or months in some patterns.

I see the year as a circle, Christmas on top and July 4 on the bottom. Week is the same, Wednesday on top and Sunday on the bottom. At least this doesn't contradict operations on dates. I see numbers in a great line stretching from negative numbers to positive (I don't know if from left to right or vice versa, just a line.) The line turns a corner somewhere arount 100 or so and shifts to a logarithmic scale. Integers are bumps on the line. So are rationals, and algebraic numbers (different types of bumps.) No colors though. Nor do I hear colors in musical keys. (Assignment of colors to keys is not consistent across people.)

28 posted on 03/18/2002 8:08:50 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic
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To: M. Thatcher
Her synesthesia also causes her to "see" people as shapes; they are categorized somehow as "triangles" "ovals" "circles" etc.

Undoubtedly, she'd see my shape as "pear". LOL. Glad she has been able to value her unusual abilities.

29 posted on 03/18/2002 8:21:29 PM PST by lsee
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To: M. Thatcher
I'd heard of this before and I'd give my eye-teeth to experience it. Tell us any more interesting stories about your daughter - it is truly fascinating. I wonder in what shape she would see me? Do the people shapes she sees have anything to do with personality types? I wonder if any of the famous artist had synesthesia?
30 posted on 03/18/2002 8:43:53 PM PST by Libertina
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To: monkeyshine
Very cool. Thanks for the bump.

In our local paper there was an article about a woman with this.
What I remember most is that there was a number which smelled like cabbage to her.

31 posted on 03/18/2002 8:46:48 PM PST by d4now
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To: Moosilauke
You may find this MIT site interesting as well.

I did -- thanks for the link.

32 posted on 03/18/2002 8:46:49 PM PST by Interesting Times
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To: Libertina
Do the people shapes she sees have anything to do with personality types?

I don't think so. They just "are." She sees people having shapes kind of like we see hair color. I remember when I was going to meet her first grade teacher my daughter told me, "She's a circle." I assumed she meant the woman was plump. After I'd met this slim, slight woman, I came home and had one of the conversations that over time I came to recognize:

"Honey, Ms. S isn't fat. I thought you told me she was round."

"No, she's not round. She's a circle. It's her shape."

"But she's thin."

"No, her SHAPE."

Pause.

"What shape am I?"

"Silly, you're a triangle, Mommy."

Eventually there were enough of these odd conversations that I was able to put it all together, and after doing some research discovered the phenomenon had a name. As I said, it hasn't really affected anything, although I do know my daughter finds it rather embarrassing now, and does NOT mention these things to people until she gets to know them really well.

33 posted on 03/19/2002 4:40:13 AM PST by M. Thatcher
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Comment #34 Removed by Moderator

To: Libertina
I wonder if any of the famous artist had synesthesia?

Picasso, perhaps? He used some pretty interesting shapes in his portraits of people...

35 posted on 03/19/2002 9:10:17 AM PST by lsee
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To: grimalkin
In W.O.'s view, each numeral, except for zero and one, has a color even if printed in black and white.

So these stay black and white? Binary?

36 posted on 03/19/2002 9:18:27 AM PST by StriperSniper
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To: grimalkin
This is a really interesting article...I have never heard of this before, and it only lends credence to the belief I have, that the brain is a miraculous thing, one about which we understand really very little...I think that the brain is capable of so much potentially, and that we have only begun to tap its resources...

Just seems to me, that people who experience this condition, have brains that are wired differently and are capable of different perceptions..

37 posted on 03/19/2002 9:23:31 AM PST by andysandmikesmom
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To: M. Thatcher
I also am so glad that you posted about your daughter, and her experiences with this condition...puts to rest those sceptics, who think only people on drugs would experience this

Your daughter must have been fun to live with because of her observations...I bet it made her childhood interesting and challenging to you...

I am curious, did your daughter talk about this with her teachers and playmates, and what did they think of this...this whole thing to me is fascinating...

38 posted on 03/19/2002 9:27:27 AM PST by andysandmikesmom
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To: grimalkin
Just for thought:

Is this a newly evolved ability, or a remnant of an early ability from our proto-human ancestors?

39 posted on 03/19/2002 9:38:15 AM PST by RightWhale
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To: wimpycat
I'm not sure. A lot of languages use arabic numbers. Perhaps it's the shape that gives them a color? As for foreign words, perhaps it's the combination of letters that give off a certain hue. I don't remember reading about those instances. It would be interesting to read about that.
40 posted on 03/19/2002 9:44:58 AM PST by reformed_dem
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