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May 9, 2014

Taylor & Francis

Scientists studying the bizarre phenomenon of synasthesia – bestdescribed as a “union of the senses” whereby two or more of the fivesenses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily andautomatically joined together – have made a new breakthrough in theirattempts to understand the condition.

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Experiencing letters as colors: New insights into synesthesia

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Colored letters and numbers. Scientists studied four synesthetes who experiencecolor when seeing printed letters of the alphabet.

cientists studying the bizarre phenomenon of synesthesia -- bestdescribed as a "union of the senses" whereby two or more of the fivesenses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and

automatically joined together -- have made a new breakthrough in theirattempts to understand the condition.

V.S. Ramachandran and Elizabeth Seckel from theUniversity of San Diego studied four synesthetes whoexperience color when seeing printed letters of thealphabet. Their aim was to determine at what pointduring sensory processing these 'colors' appeared.

To do this, the researchers asked their synesthetes --as well as a control group -- to complete threechildren's picture puzzles in which words were printedbackwards or were not immediately visible.

When the results were processed, Ramachandran andSeckel discovered that the synesthetes were able tocomplete the puzzles three times faster than thecontrol subjects, and with fewer errors. Thesynesthetes also revealed that they saw the obscured

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Taylor & Francis. "Experiencing letters as colors: New insights into synesthesia."ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 9 May 2014.<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140509074122.htm>.

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synesthetes also revealed that they saw the obscuredletters in the puzzles in the same color as they wouldthe 'normal' letters. This process effectively cluedthem in to what the letters were, and allowed them toread the distorted words much more quickly than thecontrols could.

Although it was just a small study, Ramachandran and Seckel's work, published in thecurrent issue of Neurocase, 'strongly supports the interpretation that the syntheticcolors are evoked preconsciously early in sensory processing'. The four synestheteshad an advantage in completing the puzzles because the 'extra' information theyreceived when looking at the letters was then sent up to 'higher levels of sensoryprocessing, providing additional insight for reading the distorted and backwards text': afascinating and important insight into a condition those of us who see letters as justletters find simply baffling.

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The above story is based on materials provided by Taylor & Francis. Note: Materialsmay be edited for content and length.

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1. V.S. Ramachandran, Elizabeth Seckel. Synesthetic colors induced bygraphemes that have not been consciously perceived. Neurocase, 2014; 1 DOI:10.1080/13554794.2014.890728

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