You have no doubt heard of synesthesia , the slightly trippy phenomenon of one signified triggering another . It used to be considered uncommon , but it is now thought that one in every 25 people are synesthetes .
The way it manifests from one person to the next can vary considerably . While one person might " feel"another person being tickled(mirror - touch synesthesia ) , another might associate the name " Ross " witha Gregg ’s sausage balloon roll . ( Yes , plain that is a thing . ) Yet another might " see"explosions of puritanic , icteric , and bubblegum pinkwhenever Bowie’sLife on Marsplays on the radiocommunication . Etcetera , etcetera .
Still , the most normally recognized form of synesthesia is the association of certain letters or numbers with a special color . And , now , it appears that this is something most of us do – at least , to some extent . accord to a survey published in the journalBehavior Research Methods , around 70 percent of us associate different vowel sounds with a color , even if it ’s not necessarily to the same consistency as someone with fully fledged synesthesia .
Researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands and the University of Edinburgh in the UK came to this conclusion after testing for color - vowel connexion in 1,164 Dutch volunteers , around 200 of whom were synesthetes .
In one test , participants were asked to choose the wraith they felt best exemplify certain vowel sound , for case , the " aa " sound in " baa " . ( in spades a dark white-livered . ) In another , they were involve to distinguish the color that " best fit " a particular fingerbreadth , which could be any letter from A to Z or any number from 0 to 9 . To regain out how taxonomic these association were , the researcher then equate each person ’s answers to a random sample of 10,000 random associations .
There seemed to be dandy connexion between vowel sounds and colors than between digit appearances and people of color , with player generally picking sluttish , greener , yellower colors for " front vowels " ( like the " ee " in " need " , the " i " in " sit " , and the " a " in " computerized axial tomography " ) and darker , red-faced , bluer colours for " back vowels " ( like the " oo " in " iron heel " , the " ou " in " should " , and the " aw " in " paw " ) . However , there were noticeable differences in the people of colour selected by synesthetes , who run to be more " systematic " in their selection , the research worker say .
Those with synesthesia tended to pick colour that were more uttermost . They were more probable to nibble sullen and blue colors , generally talk . Yet , they were also significantly more likely to blame yellow colors for the " front vowels " .
These are just generalisation but it suggests there is " a logical system to how we link up sound and color , and the structure of speech communication has an crucial function in this process , " Mark Dingemanse , one of the researchers involved in the study , said in astatement .
" You could say that the vowel have to pass through the sorting machine that is our language before we can link vividness to them , even in synesthetes , for whom associations like these are involuntary . "
What you choose to do with this raw information is up to you .
