Could Synesthesia And Tetrachromacy Be Linked?

I recently heard a fascinating Radiolab report about tetrachromacy—or the presence of a fourth cone for color perception in people, usually women. Most people can see a million colors; tetrachromats are believed to see many more than that. It occurred to me as I listened to the portion of the program featuring an interview with tetrachromat Susan Hogan, an interior designer (perfect career choice!), that I'm just as picky about color as she is and so are most of the synesthetes I know. We are also prone to seeing subtleties of hues that are lost on our "normal" friends and family members like she is.

The author's eyes have an extra cone class for color perception.

Source: Author's own photo.

So I searched through the internet for any potential tests of color perception abilities and came up with this online "Color Challenge" on which I scored a 16 (the lower the score on a scale of 1600 the better, 0 is perfect).

And then I reached out to Dr. Jay Neitz, of the University of Washington in Seattle, who runs a lab with his wife, Maureen, which studies the interesting trait. Soon a written color test and DNA kit for my saliva were on the way. My DNA is currently being analyzed and I'll know the results in a few weeks. Even if I test positive I will have to travel to Seattle and take further testing on computers especially made for tetrachromats. Apparently the computers the rest of us use only have a spectrum to the limit seen by trichromats, or those normal people with three cones.

The extra testing is necessary because it seems that while 12 percent of women may test positive for the genes for tetrachromacy, it is not expressed in all of us. Could synesthesia be a learning pathway for the expression of such a potential? It's unclear at this time and needs to be studied more.

In addition, I had a brief email exchange with Dr. Gabriele Jordan in Great Britain, who also studies tetrachromacy. I told her that I have this parlor trick where I pick the right paint chips up at the hardware store without taking along a swatch of fabric or a bit of tile. I get home and they always match.

"I think you are right about matching colours from memory. ‘Normal’ people are not particularly good at it and I have wondered whether tetrachromacy and synaesthesia (British spelling) are somewhat linked. You are definitely not the first person to make comments of this kind," she said.

One of the benefits of tetrachromacy research would be the development of stem cell therapies for the color blind. Tetrachromats might have a vested interest in helping with this as they often have color blind people in their own families, as I do.

Just as my kit was sent off in the mail, an editor for TED WEEKENDS and Huffington Post got in touch, asking me to contribute a piece about my relationship with color to their feature on Neil Harbisson, a man who has total color blindness but discerns color now with a cyborg device which plays a distinct musical note for each color he puts in front of it. The package can be seen here and has a lovely contribution from author Chantale Sicile-Kira about her autistic son's emerging synesthesia and related art.

When I posted my suspicions about the connections between synesthesia and tetrachromacy on social media, many of my sister "synnies" said it rang true for them as well. I look forward to the results of the DNA test and will report back about any further developments into research linking the two traits.