Reading in Color

This article talks about a neurological condition known as synaethesia, which links different pathways in the brain. “Grapheme-color synaesthesia" is the term which describes the linking of colors to letters and numbers. When people with this condition (about 1 in 20) are reading something, they might either see the color in their head, or they might actually see a color on top of the actual black text. In other words, these people read in color. In an experiment, researchers found that letters which appear more often, such as vowels, are associated with brighter colors. Even people without the condition seemed to associate popular letters with brighter colors. The exact reasons behind this phenomena are unknown, but researchers believe it has something to do with the wiring in the brain getting “cross-wired.”

I found this article interesting because it proves that even though we have been researching on the human body since the beginning of time, there are still many things which we do not, and perhaps never will, understand. The article shows how intimate the wiring of the brain is and how one little thing can make a person read in colors. If something as simple as color association cannot be explained, how many other complexities of the brain and body are waiting to be discovered?