By “Music is the colour of the rainbow and roses smell blue.” Synesthesia is one of the most amazing neurological phenomena and each person experiences it in their own way. We give you all the information about it.
Smelling music. Feeling colours making sounds. Reading and perceiving that certain letters are blue, red or yellow. Synesthesia in psychology is one of the most amazing neurological phenomena and a defining characteristic of figures such as Vincent van Gogh . It is associated with creativity, but it is still, at times, a somewhat disturbing experience.
Being synesthetic is like having a mind with multiple parallel universes that react in unexpected ways . Any stimulus can suddenly trigger arbitrary sensory experiences due to an error in the brain . There is an excess of neural connections and this leads to failures and alternations when processing information.
This feature is called “multimodal integration” and it defines a small part of the population. We will provide you with all the information below.
Synesthesia involves any combination of the senses and this leads to the appearance of more than 100 subtypes of this neurological characteristic.
What is synesthesia in psychology?
Synesthesia in psychology is a neurological condition in which one or more senses are combined. Studies such as those published in the journal PLoS Biology indicate that the incidence is between 2% and 4% of the population; they also define this experience in which a stimulus provokes unexpected sensations, such as hearing colors or tasting words.
The authors of this same research emphasize that the origin of the phenomenon has a specific neural basis. A cross-activation or, as mentioned, a multimodal integration is always observed. That is, there is an excess of neural connections and this causes several senses to be activated at the same time, when processing a stimulus .
It is known that synaesthesia has a genetic basis: it is inherited from parents to children . What’s more, the journal PNAS has an interesting exploration of the origin of this excessive connectivity. The key would be a genetic alteration, which would explain, for example, why a family exhibits the same variety of sound-colour synaesthesia.
What are the main types of synesthesia?
This fact may surprise anyone, but there are 164 potential types of synaesthesia described. This is what research from the University of Sussex shows . If we take into account all the combinations that can be generated by the crossings between different senses and stimuli, the results are astonishing.
However, for a correct analysis, it is necessary to group them. This reduces the number considerably. However, and as a curiosity, we can find personality synesthesia, in which one sees each person with a certain color. Let us explore the different typologies below.
Grapheme-color synesthesia
In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, a person can see the letter “A” as blue and the letter “B” as green . In other words, each letter evokes a type of chromatic tone. The University of Edinburgh published a paper in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , describing an interesting study with 600 random children, to discover how this type of synaesthesia matures over the years.
Auditory-visual synesthesia
Auditory-visual synesthesia is also known as chromesthesia. It is a condition in which a person sees colors when listening to music or random sounds. It is an intense and stimulating experience that defined notable artists such as Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky or current singers such as Lady Gaga.
People with auditory-visual synesthesia exhibit greater lateral thinking.
Lexical-gustatory synesthesia
Can you imagine reading certain words or hearing certain sounds and suddenly tasting strawberry ice cream or mint tea? Lexical-gustatory synesthesia causes a person to taste flavors when exposed to auditory stimuli. These are particular neurological facts that make those who exhibit this condition unique.
Mirror-touch synesthesia
In the world of synesthesia in psychology, there is one experience that is particularly striking. In mirror-touch synesthesia, it is possible to have the same physical experience as another person we observe . If you are with a friend who scratches her forehead, you will feel the touch of those fingers on yours. If you watch a movie where an actor caresses an actress, you will experience that caress.
Synesthesia in psychology and the touch-sound modality
Touch-sound or audio-tactile synesthesia describes a highly stimulating phenomenon: experiencing sensations when listening to sounds. It is something similar to the classic ASMR. Sometimes, when we are exposed to certain music or certain sounds, we feel tickling caresses or as if a feather were passing over our skin.
Ticker synesthesia
Tickertape synesthesia would be hard to believe without scientific documentation. The journal Cognitive Neuroscience details this typology. There are people who, when thinking or listening to others speak, see subtitles or physical words transcribing those auditory experiences in their minds.
The authors emphasize that this is a type of synesthesia in its own right and is not related to grapheme-color synesthesia.
Science has discovered that synesthesia can also be developed through training.
People with synesthesia: what are they like?
Synesthesia in psychology is an interesting experience for several reasons. First, it is one of the most striking non-pathological neurological phenomena. Second, it is common for synesthetes to show a similar characteristic: creativity .
The University of Bern , in Switzerland, highlighted this same fact in a study: there is a link between being synesthetic and dedicating oneself to art. However, it seems that those who stand out the most in these areas are those who show the “auditory-visual” typology.
Thus, those who are exposed to auditory stimuli see extraordinary colours around them and become more involved in creative tasks. In fact, they demonstrate a greater degree of divergent creativity . That is, they show a more innovative, challenging and non-linear way of thinking.
As a curious fact, and to conclude, synaesthesia in psychology now has a new field of future. Research such as that published in the journal Nature reminds us that, although this neurological condition is congenital, it can be trained . In other words, we can learn to have synaesthetic experiences. Who wouldn’t want to?