Uk Synaesthesia AssociationNEWSLETTER

Have you ever thought that the letterQ was a bit cheeky? Or that G had aterrible temper? Is the number 6 is a loner,while 8 and 9 get on like a house on fire? Ormaybe Tuesday is a savvy business man, whileOctober and November are idle tomboys whoget into trouble while nobody’s looking? If

you’ve ever had the feeling that letters,numbers, days or months have discernablegenders or personality types, you may wellhave the experience known as OrdinalLinguistic Personification – or OLP for short.This phenomenon was first recognized as earlyas 1893, when the Swiss psychologistFlournoy described his participant ‘Mme. L’,for whom letters and numbers had not onlycomplex personalities, but also relationships offamily or association with other units in theseries. Some of her experiences are translatedbelow from the original French:

1, 2, 3 are children [who] play together. 4 is a good peaceful woman, absorbed bydown-to-earth occupations . . . 5 is a youngman, ordinary and common in his tastes andappearance, but extravagant and self-centered.6 is a young man . . . polite, gentle, . . . averageintelligence; orphan. 7 is a bad sort, althoughbrought up well; spiritual, extravagant, gay,likeable; capable of very good actions onoccasion . . . 8 is a very dignified lady, who actsappropriately. . .. She is the wife of 9 [who is]self-centered, maniacal, grumpy, endlesslyreproaching his wife for one thing or another. (Flournoy, 1893, pp. 219–220)

Mme L’s descriptions have been greatlyabridged here in the interests of space, but forher, letters and numbers were part of a hugelycomplex ‘alphanumeric community’, whosepersonalities and lives were entwined withthose of their neighbours, and who together,formed a veritable soap opera of vibrantcharacters and relationships. Although twoadditional cases were described that same year,the phenomenon quickly fell out of favour inscientific circles, and, like so other manyvariants of synaesthesia, disappeared fromscientific study almost entirely for most of the20th century. The recent upsurge insynaesthesia research, however, has pulled thisphenomenon back into the limelight, and muchhas been learned about it in recent years. Incollaboration with Dr Ed Hubbard and EmmaHolenstein, I’ve shown that OLP significantlyco-occurs with other variants of synaesthesia, inthat individuals with personifications are morelikely to have other variants, such as grapheme-colour synaesthesia. We’ve also shown that, aswith other synaesthesias, the experiences ofOLP are automatically generated: in a quick-firetest our personifier participant had difficultyquickly responding that John, James and Jimwere boys’ names since, for her, the letter Jhappens to be female. We also showed thatletters, numbers, days, and months give rise toa range of complex associations, which wesummarised into eight categories: gender (e.g., female), personality (e.g., shy), physicalappearance (e.g., tubby), occupation (e.g., business man), cognitive attributes

Jools Simner: Ordinal Linguistic Personfication: Finding thepersonable in unusual places

All images in this newsletter are the copyright of the artists. Their reproduction is not permitted without prior written consent

‘My Synaesthesia’

DO LETTERS AND NUMBER HAVE PERSONALITIES?Julie Roxburgh As for letters and numbers having gender and personality - well, yes, they alldo. I'm sure you don't want the whole caboodle, but here are a few:

A is arrogant and a bully. a is less so and a little frightened of his biggercousin. Masculine and very red.

B is gentle and helpful and won't be bullied by A. b is much the same. A pretty, soft peach/apricot. Still male.

D/d is very worldly and strides through life. However, is very kind andhelpful in a rather shouty sort of way. Marsh green and matcho female.

2 is rather similar to D in that she takes charge. But a rather nice rusty red,similar to 7, who also has a rather similar personality although tends towobble a bit and is gender ambiguous.

9 is ethereal. A gorgeous light blue but not very reliable and he seems towaft about rather, above my head.

8 is similar in colour to B, but darker, nearer apricot, and is a charming, bustlingindividual who would make lots of cake and feed us all well if she could!

Lisa Forrest For some reason I only have this 'personality' synaesthesia for certain letters.For example, capital N is stern, I think because she is a Nanny... K is young,cool and unique... O isn't very clever... Q is old... S and T are popular. I amalso a little influenced by this poem from my school days:

Volume 3 Issue 4

August 2007

WELCOMEHello everyone and welcome to the summer newsletter!

From my own experience, I

don’t have a strong sense of

letters or numbers having

personalities, and my only brush with this

type of thing is learning the alphabet by

‘letterland’ (see the examples above!).

However, my main concern with this

world of letter characters was with the

colours being ‘all wrong’ rather than

anything about their personalities!

That said, many of you do experience

letters and numbers having genders and

personalities, and some of these are

described on the back page.

There has been some debate over

whether these experiences ‘count’ as

synaesthesia or whether they are a related

but different phenomenon, as discussed

by Julia Simner on this page. Noam Sagiv

also discusses his research into the area

inside, along with a personal experiment

by Charlotte Hanson.

Best wishes,

Victoria Edmonds, Editor cont page 3

‘The Turn of the Screw’, the new book by synaesthese artist Jane Mackay, full story on page 2

The ABC by Spike Milligan

NEXT ISSUE Next time we will be looking at synaesthesia andlearning, including learning difficulties and synaesthesia’s role ineducation. If you would like to contribute to this or a futurenewsletter please write to us at: UKSA, PO Box 6258, Leighton

Buzzard, LU7 0WP or email: Newsletter.UKSA@hotmail.co.uk

Please submit your contributions by 1st September 2007 if forinclusion in the next issue.

You may well ask how I can identify my lifelong perceptions

of the personalities of numbers with characters from a

comparatively recent cartoon series. I think this must be because

one aspect of the greatness of The Simpsons is its psychological

subtlety and accuracy, and that the characters have enabled me

to give visual form to the personalities I have always perceived.

1 CREAMY YELLOW Male. Young and self-satisfied; bounces

along through life without ever realising that everyone else

thinks he’s stupid. Ralph Wiggum.

2 RED Male, a bit stupid. Milhouse.

3 GOLDEN YELLOW Gender doubtful. Seemingly comfortable

and confident. Waylon Smithers.

4 GREEN Male. Young, cheerful and confident, bounces

through life on his own terms. Bart Simpson.

5 RED Female. Motherly, rather smug. Maudie Flanders.

6 DARK WATERY BLUE Male. Serviceable and thinks he does a

good job, but a little bit dense. Chief Wiggum.

7 LIGHT BLUE Male. Intellectual, suave, sophisticated and

supercilious. Fancies himself as “different”. Not liked by the

others. Sideshow Bob *.

8 DARK GREEN Male. Grown-up fat boy. Gets on through life

in a sort of OK way, but MENSA won’t be knocking at his door.

Homer Simpson.

9 GREY-BLACK Male. Shadowy, rather villainous. Does what

he wants without caring what the others think. Mr Burns.

10 PALE GREY Female. Rather mysterious, reticent, and aloof.

(I’m not sure if a character comes to mind here – perhaps the

intelligent and exotic Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon, i.e. Mrs

Apu? She doesn’t appear in the series very often, rather like 0,

who “condescends” to join in with the other digits.)

* I think the perceived “awkwardness” of 7 may derive from the fact thatthis is the only disyllabic digit in a sequence of monosyllables, with theconsequence that it puts the rhythm out when one is counting orcalculating, whether to oneself or aloud.

SYNAESTHESIA with THE SIMPSONSJulie Speedie

'Twas midnight in the schoolroom

And every desk was shut

When suddenly from the alphabet

Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"

Said A to B, "I don't like C;

His manners are a lack.

For all I ever see of C

Is a semi-circular back!"

"I disagree," said D to B,

"I've never found C so.

From where I stand he seems to be

An uncompleted O."

C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,

You criticise my shape.

I'm made like that, to help spell Cat

And Cow and Cool and Cape."

"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"

Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"

"You're dropping me," roared H to G.

"Don't do it please I pray."

"Out of my way," LL said to K.

"I'll make poor I look ILL."

To stop this stunt J stood in front,

And presto! ILL was JILL.

"U know," said V, "that W

Is twice the age of me.

For as a Roman V is five

I'm half as young as he."

X and Y yawned sleepily,

"Look at the time!" they said.

"Let's all get off to beddy byes."

They did, then "Z-z-z."

Gwennan ThomasI don't find that every letter or number has a personality, andobviously I want to avoid learned associations like “two fatladies” and “two little ducks”! But I've always thought there'ssomething vaguely aggressive about the figure 5 – something a bit devilish or Chinese dragon-ish, if that makes sense. I'veattempted to illustrate this (right) – hardly a work of artisticgenius, but it gives you an idea.

Jasmin SinhaI have assigned colours to all figures and to some letters...and they also havepersonalities. They are not very predominant, it rather feels like they enjoyplaying a hide-and-seek game with me. I know that the 7 is shy. The reasonmight be that its colour - a washed-away brownish shade of an unknown colour -is simply a mistake. No person would choose this colour for anything. I pity the 7,and I am always torn between I like it - I don't like it. And the midnight-dark-blue8 is very self-assured, relaxed, and quiet, actually quite sympathetic, I like it. If itwere a person, it would be a most likely man...not young anymore, sitting in oneof those old fat reading chairs, possibly smoking a pipe, and although you knowthat despite his age, he might not know that much more than you as a youngerperson, he feels like he does and would not accept that your experiences mightbe as good as his... Still could be great fun spending time with him because he isa kind person, not arrogant.

Synaesthesia newsletter Junupdate 18/7/07 09:42 Page 1

UK Synaesthesia Association • PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard LU7 0WP • uksynaesthesia @hotmail.comUK Synaesthesia Association • PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard LU7 0WP • uksynaesthesia @hotmail.com

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Battle of the sexes: the relationship betweensynaesthesia and gender assignment

Charlotte HansonPersonification and the Brain

Dr Noam Sagiv

Synaesthete Artist Jane Mackay has produced a book of her artwork inspired by Benjamin

Britten’s operatic masterpiece ‘The Turn Of The Screw’.

The volume includes full-colour reproductions of the 33 paintings, together with music

examples, and an introductory essay and commentary by musicologist Andrew Plant.

Principal photography by Rodney Todd-White & Son, with additionall photography by

Nigel Luckhurst. Preface by the distinguished counter tenor James Bowman, CBE.

It was published on 19th June in a limited edition 300 copies. Please see Jane’s website

for more details or to download an order form – www.soundingartpress.com – or write to

Sounding Art Press, PO Box 49991, London, SE5 5DG

Eight years ago, when I was still a doctoral

student in California, I started recruiting

participants for my first study on coloured

letters. A number of synaesthetes contact

me; they all described their letter colours

but one synaesthete went on to describe

additional properties. His letters had

personalities too and they’ve always been

that way. It was a different era then; it was

quite difficult to convince my adviser that

studying coloured letters will get us

anywhere and I thought to myself that

adding to this what seems like a child’s

fantasies at first glance, is not going to

work out.

However, it did make sense in some way.

The personalities of graphemes seemed to

share much in common with synesthetic

colours: They were elicited by letters or

numbers and they seemed idiosyncratic

but consistent over time. The only

difference is that while colours are seen

somewhere, the personalities are usually

not, i.e., you just know (that 5 is grumpy,

for example). Very few people report

seeing anything that might suggest a

personality or an attitude (e.g., visualise a

grumpy face).

I haven’t forgotten about personified

graphemes though. Two years ago we

decided to give it a try. Maina Amin &

Femi Lafe, both MSc students then at

UCL, conducted a survey on the

phenomenon, following which a small

number of subject were tested in the lab.

We were able to show that the genders of

personified graphemes were elicited

automatically and interfered with gender

judgments (unlike Jools Simner, we used

faces and stick figures rather than names

as stimuli, but came to the same

conclusion). We also found that the

phenomenon was quite common (about 1

in 3 chromatic-graphemic synaesthetes

also reports grapheme personification).

We are now conducting a brain imaging

study in order to find out what is the

neural basis of personified graphemes.

Could similar mechanisms explain

the experiences of colour and

personification? Colour grapheme

synaesthesia is thought to results from

cross-activation within the visual cortex.

Ramachandran and Hubbard suggested

that if such cross activation occurs

elsewhere in the brain, this could yield a

different type of synaesthesia. However,

if it involved non-sensory parts of the

brains, might we get a variant like

personified graphemes? Preliminary

data suggest that this is a plausible

explanation. We are now examining

whether brain mechanisms involved in

retrieving information about familiar

people might be implicated in grapheme

personification. Considering how rich the

biographies of some synaesthetes’ letters

could be, we should not be surprised if we

found this. I can imagine that quite a few

people who personified graphemes were

told “it’s all in your head”. As luck would

have it, this was true and we shall soon

find out where exactly….

Still, one wonders why people find it so

strange. Assigning arbitrary gender to

objects is not uncommon; many languages

(French, German, Russian, Arabic, and

Hebrew to name a few) have grammatical

genders. Native speakers take grammatical

gender for granted and are often quite

surprised to find that speakers of another

language disagree on the genders of

particular objects. It remains to be seen

whether grapheme personification is more

common among speakers of languages

with grammatical gender, and how

grammatical gender interacts with the

‘synaesthetic’ one. This may be another

example where the study of synaesthesia

could shed light on cognitive mechanisms

common to all of us.

Dr Noam Sagiv is a cognitive neuroscientist atBrunel University’s Centre for Cognition andNeuroimaging, West London. He is currentlystudying grapheme and object personificationand vision>taste/smell experiences. He wouldbe happy to hear from you if you would like to take part in any studies (contact details and further information is available here:http://people.brunel.ac.uk/-hsstnns/

Battle of the sexes: the relationship betweensynaesthesia and gender assignment

It was lunchtime on the day before the UKSynaesthesia Association AGM and several of mycolleagues were discussing the relative merits ofdifferent crisps. Normally reticent to talk aboutmy synaesthesia and the related phenomena thatI experience, I plucked up the courage to ask:“Does anyone feel that crisp flavours havegender?”. Although a slightly stunned pausefollowed, my question was taken seriously andpeople seemed genuinely interested to hear that,to me, many graphemes have a fixed gender.

In the discussion that followed, it became clearthat, unlike synaesthesia, which non-synaestheteshave a difficult time in understanding, the idea ofassigning gender to objects struck a chord withmany. I was inspired to investigate this further.

In a small sample (n = 6; two men, four women) ofmedical writers, the consistency with whichgender was assigned to a list of colours, nounsand graphemes (e.g., red, hen, 2) was examined.The subjects were asked to write down thegender of 63 words, and were retested 2 weekslater. In the retest, the order of the words in thelist was rearranged to reduce the likelihood thatthe subjects were remembering their previousanswers. The percentage of answers in the retestthat were the same as the answers given in thefirst test was calculated.

Of the six subjects, one (me; CLH) is a confirmedcolour–grapheme synaesthete; one (FS) is anunconfirmed colour–grapheme synaesthete,while the remaining four (BF-S, CAH, CW, DB)are non-synaesthetes. Overall, CLH and FSscored most highly (i.e., most consistent genderassignment).

When digits and letters only were considered,three of the four non-synaesthestes did notassign any gender. In contrast, the confirmed

synaesthete scored 100% for letters and digits,while the unconfirmed synaesthete scored 85%.Interestingly, however, when digits and letterswere discounted from the test, leaving onlynouns and colours, the non-synaesthetes scoredmore highly than would be expected from chancealone (see table).

This project was a little fun to lighten a Fridayafternoon; however, the results seem to indicatethat gender assignment may be common in thegeneral population. Many people are able toassign a gender to a noun or object; theseperceptions may be affected by societalinfluences (five of the six people tested assigned‘cat’ as female and ‘dog’ as male consistentlyacross the tests). However, synaesthetes whoassign gender tend to show more consistencyover time than non-synaesthetes. Furthermore,this analysis suggests that synaesthetes assigngender very strongly to letters and digits,whereas non-synaesthetes find this concept tooabstract.

While I have known about my synaesthesia forhalf of my life, I have only relatively recentlybecome aware of my tendency to assign gender.Often, only when my perceptions have beenchallenged have I recognised that I think ofsomething as male or female, and realised thatthis is an abstract assignment. This can be astrange and sometimes unsettling experience.

If you experience word-colour synaesthesia,

and live in or around the York area, we need

you to come and take part in an exciting new

study at York Neuroimaging Centre (at York

Science Park). The study is being conducted

by researchers from the University

of East London, and the University of York.

The study is exploring the interface between

hearing and vision. By taking part in the study

you will be able to experience state-of-the-art

brain imaging technology, and learn about

exciting developments in synaesthesia and

cognitive neuroscience. Participants will also

be paid for their time.

For further information please contact Mary

Spiller by email – m.j.spiller@uel.ac.uk, orwrite to Mary Spiller, School ofPsychology, University of East London,Romford Rd, `London E14 5LZ

Participants needed for exciting new study at York Neuroimaging Centre

(e.g.,intelligent), familial relationships (e.g., daughter), relations ofnonfamilial association (e.g., friend), and emotive responses to other units(e.g., X likes/annoys/pities Y). Finally, we observed that relationshipsbetween units tend to hold within, but not across, sequences (e.g., 7 mightbe the father of 6 but not of the letter F) and, moreover, only between unitsthat are close together (e.g., P might be the son of Q, but not of a distantunit like B). We also suggested that personifications might be influenced byexperience, because personality types tend to reflect the society that wascontemporary to the report. Older studies, for example, mention ‘‘societygirls’’ and ‘‘housekeepers,’’ but these descriptions are far less obvious inmodern accounts.

Although a small number of academics have questioned whether OLPshould constitute a variant of synaesthesia in its own right, many nowconsider it to be just that. Indeed, it has proved difficult for anyone at all toproduce a definition of synaesthesia that includes all the known variants(e.g., grapheme-colour, lexical-gustatory) while excluding the OLPphenomenon. What’s agreed for sure is that the phenomenon of OLP isnow slowly revealing its characteristics to the scientific community, who,instead of dismissing it as they once did, are now treating it as a fascinatingand testable phenomenon. The May 19th edition of the New Scientistmagazine featured an article describing the phenomenon in detail: OLP, itseems, has arrived.

Dr Jools Simner is a cognitive psychologist at the University of Edinburgh,and would very much like to hear from anyone interested in sending hertheir personifications. She’s also interested to hear if you have specificpersonalities or genders for other entities, such as objects, music, oranything else! (j.simner@ed.ac.uk).

Jools Simner: Ordinal LinguisticPersonfication: Finding the personable in unusual places (cont from page 1)

Score for letters & digits only (%)

Score for nouns & colours only (%)

CLH* 100 95

FS† 85 95

BF-S – 86

CW – 79

CAH 50 67

DB – 63

CONSISTENCY OF GENDER ASSIGNMENT FOR EACH SUBJECT

* denotes confirmed synaesthete; † denotes unconfirmedsynaesthete; – denotes no genders assigned.

Synaesthesia newsletter Junupdate 18/7/07 09:42 Page 3