Why does 5 + 3 become 7? Individuality called synesthesia October 30 20:10

“The child mistakes 5 + 3 = 7. When I listened to it, the numbers look colored,” a tweet from a child mother. Why did the child write these answers or see them colored?

In fact, there are people who can feel numbers and letters together with other sensations such as color. It is a phenomenon called “sympathy”. There was a reason to change 5 + 3 to 7. (Reporter, Network Press Dept. Ken Memeda and Yohei Kato)

Feel the color in the numbers

5 + 3 = 7 What does that mean?

According to the tweet, the child feels that each number is colored.

5 is deep green, 3 is yellow, and 7 is yellowish green.

In other words, 5 + 3 = in the formula

The color sense is deep green + yellow.
So the child turns yellowish green by mixing yellow with deep green.

The person who felt yellowish green was "7" in me.

One episode after another

In response to this episode of synesthesia, there were many responses on the Internet, such as “I am myself” and “Children have synesthesia”.

Some people upload their correspondences between numbers and colors that they can see, saying, "That is exactly the sense of ten colors."

On the other hand, there is also an episode that I had a hard time.

What is synesthesia?

There was an expert studying synesthesia. Professor Noriko Nagata from the Faculty of Engineering of Kwansei Gakuin University, who has a sense of synergy. We specialize in “Kansei Engineering”, which quantifies human sensibilities and uses them in manufacturing.

According to Prof. Nagata, synesthesia is a phenomenon in which letters and numbers appear colored, and when you hear a sound, you see a color.

There are many types, "color letters" that feel the color of letters and numbers. There are “color hearing” that feels the color when you hear the sound.

Other than this, more than 150 types of synesthesia have been confirmed, such as ▽ feeling color from pain ▽ feeling color from day of the week and month ▽ feeling color from taste.

According to Prof. Nagata, a study that “sympathy is seen in about 4% of people” was recently announced.

Mechanism of synesthesia

The reason why synesthesia occurs is that the mechanism has not been elucidated, but there are currently two hypotheses.

The hypothesis that there is a strong connection between parts of different sensations, such as "the nerves that perceive the letters of the brain and the parts that perceive the color are strongly connected."

The other is the hypothesis that there is a mechanism that integrates different sensations in the brain, for example, the sense of sound heard is transmitted as a signal to the path of color sensation that does not normally flow.

Characteristics of synesthesia

As a result of research, it is said that people with synesthesia have four characteristics.

[1] I cannot control it myself.

[2] Colors that are felt by people vary, but they are consistent and consistent.

[3] Helps memorize names and phone numbers by remembering them in color.

[4] Accompanies emotions such as likes / dislikes and pleasure / discomfort.

For example, some children who have a sense of sympathy may feel that the numbers in the answer feel dirty and uncomfortable, and replace them with numbers that feel beautiful.

In fact, Prof. Nagata himself has the sympathy of `` color letters '' and `` color hearing ''. I think. ”

This is a case where the calculation answer is rewritten as a “clean color” because it is “dirty” for me.

On the other hand, he said, “I think that as people grow up, they will be able to accept and control colors and numbers separately.”

A little troubled episode

I was able to interview a 24-year-old office worker who had the sensation of “colored characters” where the characters appear in color.

For example, the word “purple” looks green and the letter “white” looks blue.

The color is clearly attached, for example, when trying to come up with a kanji called purple, it thinks that `` what kind of character is green, but it is green '', so it may be confused for a moment is.

And he taught me one episode that was a little difficult. When I first joined the company, there was an employee who had a different last name but the same color combination.

What happened was that if Sato and Tanaka were, “S” and “Ta” looked red, and “Wisteria” and “Middle” looked pink.

It seems that there were times when they accidentally called the two people with opposite names. However, he told me, “There is no problem in my life because it is colored in my head.”

Synesthesia is individuality

According to Prof. Nagata, who studies synesthesia, there are studies that there are many people who are sympathetic to artists, etc., and there is also a survey result that the percentage of those who have sympathy is high among students at the University of Art.

“Sympathy is individuality. There are many possibilities that make use of that individuality. If your child has synesthesia, you don't need to do it anymore. Give support to teach how to think and organize. Please ”(Professor Nagata)

When I heard advice for people who had synesthesia or who found that their children had synesthesia, they answered so.