Week #5 A Personal Case
J Burns -
Touching on another thing from last week, the list of synesthesia cluster shocked me, but probably not for the reasons you think. This list of types of synesthesia was so expansive. What has been frustrating for me is that I didn’t know much beyond the obvious types of synesthesia, but I finally felt seen after viewing that list. I have been looking into this condition for years, but this list is the first time it really resonated with me. I thought I’d share my experiences before recapping last week.
My sister and I both had extreme reactions to sounds throughout our lives. I would explain to my parents that the sound physically hurt, but no one could relate. I saw on this list for the first time auditory-tactile synesthesia, which is the kind I predominantly experience.
One interesting thing with my synesthesia is that the tactile sensations, or most of them at least, is that they are painful. The seemingly logical question I’ve been asked countless times over the course of my project is if they are all high frequencies. Honestly, I never considered until I was asked that when talking about this project, but I don’t think it has any correlations with the way it feels.
Another thing people have pointed out is the similarities auditory tactile can have with misophonia. These are true, and it is another way in which conditions and sensitives can overlap as outlined in last week’s post, but the key difference here is that it is not simply an emotional reaction. I feel a variety of noises physically. This is usually in my face or neck. Some examples are metal scraping against metal, thick winter jackets rubbing against themselves, and sweeping concrete. This can be very distracting as well as painful during class. Particularly during winter when many people in my environment are wearing the thick jackets.
Something else really interesting is that auditory tactile is one of the types of synesthesia considered more, so it’s in the miscellaneous section, which also includes emotions-smell, another type I have experience with.
This has been a great learning experience and also very personal for me, so I asked my sister about it for the first time in years. When I told her about the limited color-grapheme experiences I have. Instantly, she asked me what number and color. I told her 4 and neon green, and she laughed. She told me I’ve been saying that for years, and she knew it’s what I’d say. This particularly felt good because one of the ways synesthesia is “tested” is by consistency over time, which obviously is true of me.
Other things I’ve been completing this week were viewing a documentary on synesthetes and more research. I am having some trouble getting answers for as to how this impacts a synesthetes perception of the world, so hopefully, more interviews will help answer this. One of my main readings has been Wednesday is Indigo Blue by Oliver Sacks (also cited below).
The documentary, while interesting and something I recommend for those curious, did little to answer my questions.
A lot of the information is repeated from the MIT Press knowledge collection, but I did learn that when synesthetes are asked to perform routine tests such as simple addition accompanied by stating what color square is next in the problem, their synesthesia tripped them up. Some tests like this interfered with their idiosyncratic synesthetic colors, making it take extra time to say the color that is present instead of the one that they see. This is one of the first basic ways that they knew synesthetes were telling the truth. They overperformed on tests of identifying specific letters/numbers, but underperformed in tests like this where they had to state a color that was inconsistent with their synesthetic colors. Interestingly, when these colors conflicted, their pupils also constricted.
This method of testing was also used to validate grapheme-personality synesthesia, since it’s harder to monitor than color hues. To do this, they arranged the graphemes to either look like a male or female sign (below) and asked what gender the grapheme was. This was expected to slow response time when the synesthetic personality was incongruent with the symbol.
Also interesting, while Pythagoras was known for his mathematic theorems, modern reviews of his writings indicate that he had personalities for characters. It is unclear, but likely, that this is synesthesia because there was no benefit for him to be using this as a metaphor.
Also, the first letters were often very basic colors. Initially, this is another reason for which synesthetes were doubted, but further research tells us that when these synesthetic connections happen in a child’s brain, A is one of the first letters “bound” to a color (more on the binding problem in synesthesia next week). Since this happens early on, red is often one of the first colors that a child will learn. I’m going to talk about the binding problem as well as start sharing about some interviews next week, which I hope will answer of the perception problems.
Cytowic, R. E. & Eagleman D. M. (2009) Wednesday is Indigo Blue. MIT Press
Pursuit of Magic. “Synesthesia: A Documentary on Perception, Sound, Color, and Movement,” 12 Apr. 2013, https://youtu.be/-0wtfYwRCEw?si=ngJ2i71MqsPEtXG5. Accessed 6 Mar. 2025.
Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia : tales of music and the brain. Picador.
Ward, J., & Simner, J. (2022). How do Different Types of Synesthesia Cluster Together? Implications for Causal Mechanisms. Perception, 51(2), 91–113. https://doi.org/10.1177/03010066211070761
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