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Synesthesia

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Synesthesia is a remarkable condition where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with synesthesia experience a blending or crossing of their senses, such as sight and sound, leading to cross-modal sensations. In this condition, the stimulation of one sense, such as hearing a number or musical note, triggers an experience of another sense, like sensing a specific color, taste, or smell. People...

Auditory Perception

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 31, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

Visualized voices: a case study of audio-visual synesthesia.

Louise Fernay¹, David Reby, Jamie Ward

¹School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK.

|June 29, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study explored synesthesia, where sounds evoke visual experiences. A synesthete consistently linked vowel sounds to colors and shapes, with pitch affecting brightness and size.

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psychology
Sensory Perception

Background:

Synesthesia is a neurological condition where stimulation of one sensory pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory pathway.
Investigating synesthesia provides insights into sensory integration and cross-modal correspondences in the brain.

Observation:

A single case study focused on a synesthete (PS) experiencing complex visual imagery from sounds, including human voices.
Participants, including PS and controls, drew abstract visual representations of vowel sounds, noting color, size, and location.
The study manipulated vowel sounds for pitch (fundamental frequency, f0) and speaker gender.

Findings:

The synesthete (PS) demonstrated greater consistency in their visual sound experiences over time compared to controls.
Both the synesthete and controls associated higher pitch with increased luminance (lighter visuals) and higher spatial positioning.
Speaker gender significantly influenced the size of the visual representation, with male voices eliciting larger images, independent of pitch.

Implications:

This research highlights the specific cross-modal correspondences between auditory features (pitch, gender) and visual attributes (luminance, position, size).
Findings contribute to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying synesthesia and sensory perception.
The study suggests that synesthetic experiences, while unique, may follow predictable patterns influenced by basic acoustic properties.