linguistic chromesthesiae
Chromesthesia is synesthesia in which color is perceived in response to stimuli that contain no element of color. Synesthesiae, triggered by linguistic elements (such as words, lexemes, phonemes and graphemes) are the most common types of synesthesia. They are experienced by 88% of all synesthetes.
Linguistic chromesthesiae include grapheme->color, phoneme->color and lexeme->color synesthesia.
grapheme > color
About 2% of the population are grapheme->color synesthetes. A grapheme is the fundamental unit of a written language. It can be a numerical digit, letter, Chinese character, punctuation mark and so on. Most often the color of the graphemes is associated, but sometimes the color is projected (see "About synesthesia"). In such cases, it's an easy task for the projectors to notice the 2's among the 5's in the picture below.
Not all graphemes have to be colored to consider it grapheme->color syn. Some synnies only have some colored numbers or letters. In some cases the synnie has only colored vowels or consonants, and in other cases the synesthesia extends to punctuation marks, musical notes or other graphemes (but not necessarily for all).
Studies on large numbers of synesthetes reveal certain trends, of which the most common are: a red A, a yellow S, and a white or black 1 and 0. Furthermore, it seems that many synesthetes with a yellow A have a red S. To find out more about trends among grapheme and phoneme synesthetes, follow this link.
Studies on large numbers of synesthetes reveal certain trends, of which the most common are: a red A, a yellow S, and a white or black 1 and 0. Furthermore, it seems that many synesthetes with a yellow A have a red S. To find out more about trends among grapheme and phoneme synesthetes, follow this link.
Some of these trends seem to be influenced by color names. The colors for the letters B, G, R, V and Y probably come from the words blue, green, red, violet and yellow. Most studies on this were conducted among synesthetes whose native language was English, which explains some of the colors. Therefore, some of these trends can only represent the tendencies of English-speaking synesthetes.
One might assume that the trigger here is the shape of the grapheme, but this is not true. It is the semantic meaning that is responsible for the experience. This becomes clear if we consider that most synesthetes have different colors for O (letter) and 0 (number). Another example are - (dash) and - (minus). When a syesthete has different colors for upper and lower case letters, it is not necessarily a matter of the different shapes. It is more likely to be a matter of the meaning - the different letters are used for a different purpose in grammar, hence the semantic meaning isn't the same. However, a few synesthetes' letters tend to take a slightly different shade when the letters are written in different fonts. This indicates that, sometimes, the shape does influence the response.
It's said that synesthesia is consistent, i.e. the responses don't change over time. But many synesthetes say that some of their letters had different shades in the past. A letter, number or month might change its color, as might the responses in other types of synesthesia. This may happen to only a few graphemes, but not to the whole alphabet.
Grapheme->color synesthesia is most often triggered by written language, but in some cases also by spoken language. The reason for this is the fact that graphemes are processed even during speech comprehension, which is revealed by psycholinguistic studies. These experiences cannot be labeled as phoneme->color synesthesia, even though they are triggered by spoken words. For a grapheme synesthete, the words cat and cite would have the same color, but for a phoneme synesthete the colors would be different. The words site and cite would have the same color for a phoneme synesthete, but not for a grapheme synesthete.
One might assume that the trigger here is the shape of the grapheme, but this is not true. It is the semantic meaning that is responsible for the experience. This becomes clear if we consider that most synesthetes have different colors for O (letter) and 0 (number). Another example are - (dash) and - (minus). When a syesthete has different colors for upper and lower case letters, it is not necessarily a matter of the different shapes. It is more likely to be a matter of the meaning - the different letters are used for a different purpose in grammar, hence the semantic meaning isn't the same. However, a few synesthetes' letters tend to take a slightly different shade when the letters are written in different fonts. This indicates that, sometimes, the shape does influence the response.
It's said that synesthesia is consistent, i.e. the responses don't change over time. But many synesthetes say that some of their letters had different shades in the past. A letter, number or month might change its color, as might the responses in other types of synesthesia. This may happen to only a few graphemes, but not to the whole alphabet.
Grapheme->color synesthesia is most often triggered by written language, but in some cases also by spoken language. The reason for this is the fact that graphemes are processed even during speech comprehension, which is revealed by psycholinguistic studies. These experiences cannot be labeled as phoneme->color synesthesia, even though they are triggered by spoken words. For a grapheme synesthete, the words cat and cite would have the same color, but for a phoneme synesthete the colors would be different. The words site and cite would have the same color for a phoneme synesthete, but not for a grapheme synesthete.
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