Synesthesia: When colors count

Abstract

A tacitly held assumption in synesthesia research is the unidirectionality of digit–color associations. This notion is based on synesthetes' report that digits evoke a color percept, but colors do not elicit any numerical impression. In a random color generation task, we found evidence for an implicit co-activation of digits by colors, a finding that constrains neurological theories concerning cross-modal associations in general and synesthesia in particular.