For my STEAM project, I surveyed 10 people in the Emma Willard community to find out which ones had synesthesia, a neurological condition in which one stimulus triggers an unrelated stimulus in another sense. To do this, I asked them to pick which color they associated with a certain letter or number and repeated the process 1-2 months later. Synesthesia is consistent so if the colors associated with each letter and number stayed the same, it would mean that person was a synesthete. I found out that one of the participants had number-color synesthesia, and most non-synesthetes had an average of 1.5 out of 6 color associations that stayed the same. One thing that challenged me was actually making myself go up to people and ask them to participate in my project. I don’t like to inconvenience people and I have a really hard time going up to people. This part would have been the easiest for some people, but for me it was very difficult. I really enjoyed looking at the data because it was so visual. It was also fun to compare other people’s associations to my own. I would tell a future STEAM researcher to pick a project they are interested in and have fun doing it. I enjoyed my project a lot, and I would like to thank Ms. Harrison for being a great mentor.

In analyzing my data, I found that one of the participants had number-color synesthesia because both of the number-color associations stayed constant. Another interesting thing I learned is that the participants who were mostly non synesthetes had 0-3 constant associations. This is interesting because they should logically have either all constant or no constant associations. The constant associations could be because the participants had a non-synesthetic association with the letter or number, for example refrigerator magnets of a certain color as a child, or they could have been because the participants remembered the color they answered for the first test. There is not much that could be done to prevent the first source of error, but I could limit how many participants remembered their previous answers by spacing out the tests more than I actually did. I have begun to make my poster and it it really exciting to be making an actual scientific poster.

I have gotten data from 10 people for the first round. It is really interesting to look at the patterns of what colors people associate with different letters/numbers. For example, J has a lot of pinks and purples while 8 has a lot of green. I am not sure if that is coincidence, or an actual pattern. It is true that synesthetes associate certain colors with certain letters and numbers more often (vowels tend to be lighter for example), so maybe it is a pattern, even though most of those I surveyed are statistically not going to be synesthetes. I have been wondering how to analyze my data after I have the second round. How close do colors need to be to be counted as the same? I found an alphabet and numbers that I had assigned to their color in my head from two years ago. Here it is: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz,12345678910. This is very similar to the alphabet and numbers that I had changed to the color in my head from a few weeks ago which is here: 123456789, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. This might be a good clue as to how similar of a color to make the cut off, since almost all of them are very similar, and this is over 2 years for me compared to a few weeks for the participants. I will soon start to get the second round of data. It will be interesting to see how much peoples’ colors have changed.

I have begun asking people to answer the quiz that I made. My procedure is to go up to other students that I will be able to easily see again, often during a free grab block, and asking them “Do you mind answering a few questions to help me with my STEM project?” Then, I would open up the color selector on google docs (it is what you get when you select custom after going to the drop down menu to change a color) and saying “What color do you most closely associate with…?” If they seemed confused by this question or were having a hard time picking a color for the letter/number, I would say “Just pick the first color that pops into your head.” I had them pick colors for two numbers, four letters, and one note played on google guitar. When playing the note, I would cover up the screen because the string turns blue when it is played and I didn’t want that to influence the participant’s choice. Once the participant selected the color, I wrote down the code for the number on a piece of paper. One problem I faced was that I would accidentally copy the number wrong so it would not produce a color when I typed it back into the box. I was not sure whether to re-ask the person, throw away their data completely, throw away their data for that type of synesthesia, or try to just use data from the other letters/numbers to determine if they have synesthesia. After consideration, I have decided to just use the data from the other numbers and letters. Now I need to gather information from more people and then move on to the second round after March break.

For the quiz to determine synesthesia rates, I have decided to be simple and administer the quiz casually and in person, for example to my classmates during a grab block. I will have a spreadsheet that will contain the participant’s name, date, and then will ask them to select what color they associate with certain stimuli such as letters, numbers, musical notes, and words. They will pick the color from the color chooser on google drive. It is low-tech but it is easy and hopefully effective. I will then ask them again in 2 weeks plus or minus 3 days. Since March break is 2 weeks, I am thinking of doing experiment before and after the break. The reason I am going to ask them twice over time is because one of the defining characteristics of synesthesia is that it is consistent, i.e. the number 5 won’t be pink one day and blue the next in a synesthete. By spreading out the quizzes and asking the participants the same questions, I will be able to compare their answers. Those whose answers did not differ much over the 2 weeks are likely synesthetes. This quiz will cover a few types of synesthesia: number-color, letter-color, auditory/note-color, and word-color, though I might decide to add or subtract some aspects. My next steps are to finalize the quiz and think about what I am going to do with the data once I get it. Maybe I will perform another experiment with the synesthetes or interview them about their experiences.

I am beginning to research and I have found a lot of background information that I can use for my presentation, as well as some more specific information and studies that are just interesting to read. There has been a lot of research into getting non-synesthetes to develop synesthetic connections through different processes, for example hypnotism, and what that can tell us about how synesthesia develops. I did not mention in my last blog post that one of the reasons that I am interested in synesthesia is because I have number-color and number-letter synesthesia. (123456789, abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz). The numbers and letters don’t actually appear to me to be a certain color. Someone described how synesthesia is for me very well by saying that if you hear or see the word “banana,” you think of the color yellow in the back of your mind. It is like that for me but for all the letters and numbers, and there is no particular reason for the letters/numbers being the color they are for me. Other people sometimes have different experiences with synesthesia. Some synesthetes actually see a letter/number/word/note as a color. There is some great art in which people have painted what they see when they hear music or experience other stimuli. These are a few of the interesting things I have learned about in my research. Moving forward, I will begin to develop a quiz to find out the synesthesia rates at Emma Willard.

After a two meetings with Ms. Harrison, I have decided to focus my neuroscience project on synesthesia. Synesthesia is a condition that affects about 1 out of 20 people. It is Greek for senses coming together, which is an accurate definition. Synesthesia is a condition in which one stimulus triggers an unrelated stimulus of another sense. For example, the most common type is perceiving colors when one sees/thinks about numbers, letters, or words. More unusual types include seeing/perceiving colors when one hears music, and perceiving personalities for each letter or number. There are several different theories for how it starts. One is that all babies have synesthetic connections but they are pruned away in most brains. Another is that neurons associated with one sense turn up in the wrong part of the brain. For my project, I will present background information and identify the synesthesia rates in the community and possibly interview some people with synesthesia about their experiences. The next step is to research and to come up with a plan for identifying the synesthesia rates in our community.