Grapheme-Color Synesthesia Test Infographic
Hey there, folks! How’s it going? Today we have a special treat for all you bloggers, forum posters, and general Internet surfers who also have an interest in synesthesia. The infographic below (which we encourage you to share with the embed code provided), provides a brief synesthesia test for grapheme-color synesthesia – one of the most common types of the condition. While the test itself is pretty simple, we think that the graphic gives readers of various levels of understanding a general idea of what all grapheme-color synesthesia entails.
As this is our first infographic, we’d love to hear some feedback from our viewers! Also, please do share! All that we ask for in return is a link (to www.synesthesiatest.org) so that we can continue to increase our online exposure! And hey, if you happen to find that your perception of graphemes is on par with what we describe in the graphic, let us know! While it’s certainly not an official test for synesthesia, it’s a good place to start! Enjoy!
Feel like sharing? Awesome! Simply use the embed code provided below to insert this graphic on your own blog or forum!
Thanks again! We’ll see you shortly!
I am so excited and relieved to find out about Synesthesia…I have known certain letters, numbers, days of the week and months had specific colors my entire life…and the colors have never changed or varied. I remember mentionaing it to my mother when was just a young girl, and her reaction…that SHE didn’t see things that way…was such a surprise to me. Throughour my growing up I occasionally would mention it, very tentatively, to see if anyone else related colors as I did, but never found anyone. I thought it was just an odd quirk…even had a psycholigist tell me that it wasn’t anything…just a sign that I was creative. I accepted that and always felt different, but somewhat special at the same time. What a surprise to find that not only are there others like me, but it has a name: grapheme to color synesthesia! Hooray!
Hey JWW,
Thanks for the comment! Glad we could provide you with some useful information. There are many others that have experiences that are very similar to yours! If you’re interested in sharing your experiences with our blog (anonymously or not), we’d love it if you contacted us through our contact form!
I see numbers in color, but only if I think about them ie. they do not appear in color if typed black on a page, for example, as in your test. 2 is always yellow, 4 brown, 8 red, and yellow x brown has always equalled red … of course!
3 is pink, and 6 and 9 are a kind of light blue … and they are related … which makes “sense” to me. 5 is orage, 1, 7, and 0 are black.
I thought everyone saw the same, until I walked past a TV one day where a commentator said “Some people see numbers in color” … and I stopped in my tracks and said aloud “WHAT”? Am a professional artist and neurologist and give talks on “Art and the Brain”. Am intersted in this.
I recently heard a friend describing the symptoms of her synesthesia. So I looked it up. This test is incredibly clear. I can’t believe it. I had always had distinct associations between colors and letters, numbers, days, and months, but I always thought that everyone had this, since my mother and discussed similar experiences. It’s amazing to learn that NOT everyone does. I thought it would only count as synesthesia if you actually SEE the colors, rather than just THINKING of them. This is very interesting, and gratifying to learn, as I have been interested in synesthesia for a while; secretly wishing I had this sort of experience; now I know that this normal part of life is actually IT. Thank you.
Also, my mother and I both have personalities for numbers. What is that?
Just wondering….
Thanks for the comments, Aka. It may be some form of ordinal linguistic personification!
I have seen letters and numbers in color all my life, and I am almost 60 years old. A red. B black. C the color called “camel”. D brown. E & F are different greens. The number 1 solid-white. 0 (zero) is translucent-white. Etc. T is a different shade of green than e or f. (I noted that because of typing etc.)
It’s pleasant to see radiant colors as I type or read.
I could go on and on. An example, license plates being pretty or awful. We had a car years ago that had an awful license plate (color). It actually ruined the look of that car.
Hey Lani,
Awesome share! Your comments on license plates bring to mind all of the different places that letters and numbers appear, and how grapheme-color synesthesia might change the way one perceives these things. Billboards, book covers, movie subtitles. Quite a pandora’s box, actually. Thanks again!
I’ve always seen numbers/letters etc as colours and, like pretty much everyone else has said, I thought it was the same for everyone. In my mind, A is red, B is purpley-blue, C is yellow, D is light blue, E is a slightly lighter yellow that C and so on throughout all numbers, letters and words. Last year, I read this book called Ultraviolet by R J Anderson and the main character had synesthesia. I thought this was really cool and secretly hoped that I might be like that… So I asked friends if they thought in the same way and some people even refused to believe me! I wasn’t sure whether it was synesthesia or not, as I thought you had to actually physically see the colour on the paper, but now I know that just visualising it is the same. Yay! Thank you.
Thanks for the comment, Lila. No problemo!