Comments on: People With Synesthesia Have More Autistic Traits

By: Neil Petersen

Neil Petersen — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 20:46:55 +0000

In reply to Liz. That's interesting! You might want to look into ordinal linguistic personification, where people associate numbers or letters with personalities. This paper cites a few case studies that are similar to but not exactly the same as what you're describing: 1) someone who has emotions triggered in response to textures 2) someone who sees colors in response to pleasant or unpleasant images 3) someone with Asperger's who understands emotions better when they're associated with colors. My personal, non-expert impression is that what you're describing does seem related to synesthesia, but that it's not in an area that's been well-enough researched to say exactly what it is. For that matter, researchers still don't have clear answers on what synesthesia is, and what exactly is and isn't synesthesia!

By: Liz

Liz — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:44:24 +0000

I find I associate numbers and colors with feelings. Numbers or colors that I see as sad nervous or angry will make me extremely uncomfortable, and start to feel that feeling. Is this part of synesthesia? I also have many “autistic” traits ( but do not have autism.) My daughter does have autism and also associates feelings with numbers and colors.

By: Neil Petersen

Neil Petersen — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 03:49:46 +0000

In reply to Roberta. Generally, people with synesthesia have different associations, but there are some associations that tend to be more common. For example, I believe 'A' is often (but not always) associated with red. As far as colors and numbers, I'm not sure about that one. It's an interesting question, I should probably do a post on it!

By: Roberta

Roberta — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 19:31:07 +0000

My synesthesia connection is with numbers and colors. Have you found a trend at all that associates specific numbers and colors? For example: 3 and yellow, 4 and red, 5 and blue?

By: Neil Petersen

Neil Petersen — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 19:19:38 +0000

In reply to Vernon Every. Cool! I don't have a citation on this, but I believe I read that the letter A is red for a disproportional number of synesthetes. It seems like John and north could be the letter As of names and directions respectively. :P

By: Vernon Every

Vernon Every — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 11:37:44 +0000

Interesting! For the record, for me John and north are red, Peter and east are green, Timothy and south are yellow, Paul is orange, Mary and west are blue and I could go on with other names but not much in the way of further colours.

By: Neil Petersen

Neil Petersen — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 23:34:06 +0000

In reply to Luke. Thanks, Luke!

By: Luke

Luke — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 04:29:06 +0000

I hope you keep writing this blog for a long time, the subject matter itself is quite interesting, and you present it in a way that makes it compelling and accessible.