What Color Is Your Name? A New Synesthesia Tool Will Show You.
Here’s your chance to see how people with synesthesia perceive letters and numbers
For as long as I can remember, I’ve seen letters and numbers as colors. It’s a form of synesthesia called grapheme-color synesthesia, and for me, this translating from symbols to colors happens most often with names.
When I meet new people, I forget their name immediately. Don’t get me wrong, I hear the name, but my mind is distracted. In my head, I am counting the number of letters in the name, and visualizing the colors of each letter.
Your name may be Emily, but to me, you’re a bright, sunny swath of five letters with an “E” and an “I.” When I meet you again later, I may think your name is Emily or Jille or Ellie. Those three names “look” remarkably similar to someone who operates as I do — they all have five letters, they all include the letters “i,” “l,” and “e.”
What is synesthesia?
Synesthesia is a rare sensory trait shared by about 4% of the population, and it comes in many forms. People who “see” or associate…
