Synesthesia ...

is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes. Researchers study synesthesia not only because it is inherently interesting, but also because studying it can offer insights into other questions, such as how the brain combines information from different sensory modalities, referred to as crossmodal perception and multisensory integration. Tests like this demonstrate that people do not attach sounds to visual shapes arbitrarily. Which shape would you call "Kiki" and which "Booba?" An example of this is the booba/kiki effect. In an experiment first designed by Wolfgang Köhler, people are asked to choose which of two shapes is named booba and which kiki. 95% to 98% of people choose kiki for the angular shape and booba for the rounded one. Individuals on the island of Tenerife showed a similar preference between shapes called takete and maluma. Even 2.5 year-old children (too young to read) show this effect. Researchers study synesthesia not only because it is innately interesting, but also because studying it can offer insights into other questions, such as how the brain combines information from different sensory modalities, referred to as crossmodal perception and multisensory integration. It has been suggested that the kiki/booba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary. The rounded shape may intuitively be named booba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound, while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to articulate kiki. The sound of K is also harder and more forceful than that of B. Such "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and actions in the world. Given synesthetes' extraordinary conscious experiences, researchers hope that their study will provide better understanding of consciousness and its neural correlates, meaning what the brain mechanisms that make us conscious might be. In particular, synesthesia might be relevant to the philosophical problem of qualia (the subjective quality of conscious experience. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the redness of an evening sky), given that synesthetes experience extra qualia (e.g., a colored sound). Synesthetic art historically refers to multi-sensory experiments in the genres of visual music, music visualization, audiovisual art, abstract film, and intermedia. Synesthesia is sometimes used as a plot device or way of developing a character's inner life.

Author and synesthete Pat Duffy[1] describes four ways in which synesthetic characters have been used in modern fiction.

1.Synesthesia as Romantic ideal: in which the condition illustrates the Romantic ideal of transcending one's experience of the world.

2.Synesthesia as pathology: in which the trait is pathological.

3.Synesthesia as Romantic pathology: in which synesthesia is pathological but also provides an avenue to the Romantic ideal of transcending quotidian experience.

4.Synesthesia as psychological health and balance.

[1] Patricia Lynne Duffy is an instructor in the UN Language and Communications Programme. Duffy has given presentations on synesthesia at Yale University, Princeton University, the University of California, San Diego, Rockefeller University, the University of Virginia, and others. She is a co-founder of and consultant to the American Synesthesia Association. BLUE CATS and CHARTREUSE KITTENS How Synesthetes Color Their Worlds By Patricia Lynne Duffy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

and... just in case you heard otherwise from other "indigo" sources, the designated word "Indigo" has nothing to do with the color of an aura! It is the result of scientific observations by a woman who has the brain disorder called synesthesia. http://www.indigochild.com/

Little Boy Blue

Indigo kids: Does the science fly?