Music/sound – color synesthesia
While grapheme-color synesthesia is the most common type of synesthesia, there are many other types of synesthesia. The exact number is not known because there can be so many variations on one sense and its associations. Multiple types of synesthesia are often experienced in conjunction. In fact, it is very common for a synesthete to have more than one type of synesthesia. Some of the other types include:
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Music/sound – color synesthesia |
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Some people hear sounds and perceive them visually. This can happen with both musical and non-musical sounds. Julian Ashton is an example of a person with music – color synesthesia. When he was a child, he went to the orchestra and experienced a cascade of colors, while others went to enjoy harmonies and the compilation of sounds. Unaware that his experience was out of the ordinary, Julian later reflects on the experience of going to a concert as a child, saying, "I thought they turned down the lights so you could see the colors better."( Real Rhapsody in Blue, 2003)
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Lexical-gustatory synesthesia |
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| tiki.oneworld.net |
A lesser-known type of synesthesia is lexical-gustatory synesthesia. This type of synesthesia developes with language acquisition and speakers learn the structure of their native languages. Research has shown that people with lexical-gustatory synesthesia experience a sense of taste when they hear specific phonemes. Often they will taste the type of food that the phoneme resembles. For example, the combinations of the phonemes /I/ /n/ /s/ could cause the taste sensation of mince.(Ward, 2003)
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Flavor – Sense of Touch |
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When someone with this type of synesthesia experiences a strong sense of taste, it can be associated with a sense of touch. Synesthetes may feel different temperatures associated with flavor. For example, a strong, spicy flavor may trigger a feeling of warmth cascading down the arm.
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Time – space synesthesia |
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| www.tclauset.org |
Individuals with this type of synesthesia associate units of time (days, weeks, months, etc.) with places in space, usually related to their body. In addition to having a specific location, the units of time often have shape and color as well. The image above is the way that one synesthete views the months of the year around his body, starting with dark blue January at the bottom and continuing counterclockwise to the cream-colored December.
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Ordinal-linguistic personification |
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| www.clinqs.com |
Ordinal – linguistic personification (OLP) is a variant form of synesthesia in which people assign human characteristics to letters. It is common for this to co-occur with grapheme synesthesia.(Simner, 2006) Synesthetes with this type of synesthesia have trouble reading colored text that clashes with the synesthetic color that they experience.