Another less-used
name is “colour-graphemic” synesthesia
It includes letter-colour, word-colour and number-colour (digit-colour)
People with
this type of synesthesia involuntarily associate certain colours with graphemes
(letters, numbers and other written symbols such as punctuation
marks or characters in languages with non-alphabetic writing systems). They
perceive these associated colours when reading the letters, words or numbers or
thinking about them.
It is one of the most common types of synesthesia. In fact, it can probably be considered the most common of all, as it is estimated that more than 60% of synesthetes have this type. It has also been extensively studied and is very well-known, as in addition to being common (and therefore relatively easy to find subjects of study) it is highly consistent and invariable and quite easy to verify by online testing.
How are the colours of the letters and numbers perceived?
Some people
have colours for letters but not for numbers, or vice versa: not all grapheme-colour
synesthetes have both types.
It’s also interesting to note that for many, not all the letters or numbers have a colour. So for example 1, 2, 3 and 5 might have a colour, but 4 doesn’t.
And there are also many cases where the symbols have more than one colour at the same time. In my own personal case, 4 is blue, but it’s also red, as nothing seems redder to me than a year ending in the number 4.
When
someone with this type of synesthesia reads or thinks about a word they might
see each individual letter in its corresponding colour, but very few grapheme-colour
synesthetes actually perceive words in this way. It appears to be much
more common for the whole word to take on the colour of its initial letter, as
the first letter has a more forceful presence in the word. Alternatively,
the word might take on the colour of its first letter but be nuanced by the
tones of one or more of the letters following it. It can also happen that
one of the other letters in the word bears a particular weight for the
synesthete in question, even though it is not the first letter, meaning it will
“colour” the whole of the word in general. This is often the case
for vowels.
"This is how I see words", by Herbie53101
For
numbers, the situation is often similar: if the digit 2 is blue, for example, the
compound numbers starting with 2 – 24, 250, 2000 and so on – frequently also
appear as blue or some variant of it. However, for some people
it is the last digit that determines the colour of compound numbers, and
in other cases each number has its own unique colour even if it has two or more
digits.
Is
there any consensus about the colour of specific letters and numbers?
In general, no: letters and numbers can be any colour at all and it can safely be said that no two synesthetes have the exact same colours for their entire alphabet or number system. However, it is true that some colours seem to be more “popular” for certain letters and numbers. The letter ‘A’ being red is the best known case perhaps (in a study conducted in 2004, researcher Sean Day discovered that A is this colour for 44% of grapheme-colour synesthetes). White ‘I’ and black ‘Z’ also occur more frequently than dictated by chance, for example. As to numbers, ‘1’ often tends to be white and zero either transparent, colourless or with no association, although there is little consensus for the rest.
Emotional
importance
People
with this type of synesthesia tend to feel annoyed or uncomfortable when they
see the symbols represented in colours different from their own. So, for
example, if C is apple green for one synesthete a C written in that colour will
look harmonious and “right” while a C that is blue, red or any other colour
will usually give them the unpleasant sensation that it is “wrong”.
How should
this type of synesthesia be defined, if it’s all visual and doesn’t involve two
different senses?
Despite being one of the commonest and best-known types of synesthesia, grapheme-colour is a good example of a type that does not fit in with the definition that synesthesia is “a crossing of the senses”, which was popular at one time but is now on the way to being superseded by more up-to-date definitions. Like many other types, grapheme-colour does not involve perceptions in two different senses but is a conceptual type of synesthesia, where the concept of the letters or numbers triggers a visual perception of colour. Synesthesia does not occur in response to individual, random concepts but to series or sequences of abstract concepts that are called “overlearned sequences” (sequences we learn, usually in early childhood, and then practice a lot as we have to memorise them). So grapheme-colour can in fact be classified as one of the many subtypes of coloured sequence synesthesia.
Numerosity
rather than symbols as an inducer of grapheme-colour synesthesia
In the case of number-colour synesthesia, there are cases where the colour concurrent is prompted by the concept of numerosity in itself, regardless of written symbols. So, for example, some people perceive a colour when somebody holds up a certain number of fingers to show a number, or when they throw a dice and see the dots on it, or even when they look at a geometric shape or object with a certain number of sides.
Phoneme-colour
This refers to spoken words, i.e. words that are heard rather than read. A grapheme is the smallest unit of written language (a letter), while a phoneme is the smallest unit of speech differentiating one word from another (a sound). Grapheme-colour for letters and phoneme-colour synesthesia are similar, but in phoneme-colour synesthesia the colour experience on seeing the letters is related to how they sound in a word rather than just their written form.
Go to the page on phoneme-colour synesthesia
Lexeme-colour
and morpheme-colour
MILLION (lexeme)
MILLIONAIRE (lexeme + morpheme)
MULTIMILLIONAIRE (morpheme + lexeme + morpheme)
Go to the page on lexeme-colour and morpheme-colour
Grammatical categories-colour
For a few synesthetes, grammatical categories - parts of sentences, words or phrases that have a specific syntactic function such as conjunctions, indirect complements, adverbial phrases, etc. - are accompanied by a specific colour perception. This would be better classified as an example of coloured sequence synesthesia but not specifically grapheme-colour synesthesia. It is mentioned on the list of examples of inducers on the page on coloured sequence synesthesia.
Grapheme-shape/colour/texture/image
For some synesthetes, letters, words or numbers have not only colour but also texture and other features, or they can even automatically evoke a complete image. Go to the page on grapheme-shape/colour/texture/image
Go to the page on grapheme-shape/colour/texture/image
Go to the page on phoneme-colour synesthesia
Go to the page on lexeme-colour and morpheme-colour synesthesia
Go to the page on coloured sequence synesthesia
This page is about grapheme-color synesthesia. This page is about grapheme-colour synaesthesia
This page last updated: 14 April 2024
Yep zero for me is transparent and colourless. I find it frustrating and feels like trying to catch or hold water in your hands. It makes me uncomfortable when seeing zero in my head.
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