An
alternative name would be concept-colour
This
type of synesthesia, very common among the synesthete population, consists of
perceiving a colour concurrent for each item in a series or sequence of
concepts. The best known examples are time unit-colour, where the
days, months, etc. each have their own colour, and grapheme-colour, for letters, numbers and words.
However,
many more series or sequences of concepts trigger this type of synesthesia.
These sequences can be found in all areas of life such as geography (cities,
countries…), sport (swimming styles…), music (notes, keys, genres, artists, songs...), anatomy (parts of the body) and many
more areas. The colour associations arise at some time during the
period when the sequences are being learnt and they rarely vary throughout the synesthete’s
lifetime, remaining stable once formed. They are idiosyncratic,
so for one synesthete a particular concept might be cherry red, for
example, while for another the same concept could be yellow or black. Sometimes
the colours are perceived as having a specific texture, a shape and/or a particular
rhythm or movement, and for some synesthetes each item in the sequence can also
have a fixed spatial position, which is a manifestation of spatial sequence synesthesia
(see the page on spatial sequence synesthesia and the page on spatial sequences of concepts).
There
are also types of synesthesia triggered by series or sequences of concepts where
the concurrent is not colour or a visual perception but gustatory or olfactory:
each concept has a taste or smell. These types are very
uncommon. Series of concepts having sounds has also occasionally been reported. (Go to the pages on concept-taste and concept-smell and concept-sound synesthesia.)
 |
| Example by Corinna, on the website Sensequence |
Geometric
shapes (circle, square, triangle, etc.)
Concept
of left/right
Directions (left, right, up, down, etc.)
Hands
Parts of the body
 |
| Example by Croli, on the website Sensequence |
Continents
States, provinces, counties or prefectures
Cities
Streets
Cardinal
points
Concept of clockwise/anti-clockwise
Languages
Grammatical
categories
Mathematical concepts, theorems or operations
Coins
(denominations)
 |
| Example by account_tnuocca, in this post in Reddit/Syn |
School subjects
Rooms in the house
Swimming styles
Dance steps
Martial arts movements
Gymnastics movements
Meals (breakfast, lunch etc.)
Radio stations
Football clubs
 |
| Examples in this post in Reddit/Synesthesia |
Video
games
Seasons
of TV series
Periods of life (early childhood, university years, etc.)
The concepts of past, present and future
Books
Authors
Stories
Poems
Sharps and flats in music
Christmas carols
Prayers
Religious denominations
Zodiac
signs
Mbti functions (Myers-Briggs personality types)
Chess
pieces
Coin tosses (heads/tails)
Wow, these are cool. I didn't know they exist. I only have colored graphemes, but these seem totally possible. Also I just plain like them because I love categories.
ReplyDeleteOh wow I have almost all of these! Sooooo cool to know that there is a name for it and that it’s a unique way of experiencing the world ❤️
ReplyDeletewow, I honestly think I have this type of synesthesia and the one where you hear colors, and the one where you assign colors to people, also I don't know if this is related but when I think of the months of the year I put them in an order June and July in the middle, anyways I'm too lazy to explain it but is it related?
ReplyDeleteYou could look at the description of Calendar synesthesia and see if you have something similar:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/02/calendar-synesthesia.html
WOW! I'm still not sure if I have synesthesia, but if I do, I think this is the kind I have.
ReplyDeleteI think I maye have this for example with the periodic table I think each element has its own color, and even though I don't see them as that color, I associate them and if I see it in a different color I think it is wrong. For example, the periodic table in my room has Bismuth as green but that looks wrong, and it should be blue. Another really specific example is with triangles, ever since I learnt about the pythagorean theorem in 6th grade I thought of a 3,4,5 traingle as green or a 6,8,10 triangle as dark blue. However this doesn't interfere with my math learning. And, I don't know why this happens, I don't think it's because of a property of the triangles or elements. Also, I sometimes imagine personalities or genders of things. Not with triangles, but still with elements and also with places or planets or something. The specifics of them differs, for example there's a whole story and family for Neon but Oganesson is just a male. Same with instruments, but I think that is based off my own experience playing, however some personifications have no relation with people I know that play it but some do. For example, viola is based off some people I know that play it, but cello is a tall skinny boy that honestly looks like a violist I know. Sorry for the long comment but I just want to know more.
ReplyDeleteHi, Aarna!
DeleteYes, your colours for the periodic table could be considered synesthesia, if you consistently associate each element with a particular colour. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see the colour physically but just think of it: that is typical of most synesthetes in fact. It’s also quite typical to consider any other colour to be “wrong”, as you say.
Your colours for different types of triangles is likely to be synesthesia too, as the colours just seem inherent to the shapes and have been consistent since you first came into contact with these triangle concepts. It would more clear that it was synesthesia if you had it for more than just two types of triangle, so maybe you could think about whether other triangle proportions have colours too.
Perceiving personalities for series or sequences of things like the elements, cities, planets or musical instruments would also be considered synesthesia too, even if you can see the logical association that made you first think of those personalities. I like the Neon-Helium-Fluorine family you describe in your comment on the other page! What makes it synesthesia is the fact that you attribute these consistent personalities to specific series or sequences of things and not just to one-off random objects.
And letters having personalities – even if the whole alphabet doesn’t have them – is also typical OLP synesthesia (“ordinal linguistic personification”).
So yes, you can certainly consider yourself a synesthete!