A STUDY IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: HOW WE SEE LANGUAGE IN PRINT
Phase I: Project Wordcolor
It has been observed that a number of individuals, such as
Richard Feynman and one of the authors of this study, possess the ability
of being able to think of the letters of the alphabet, and even words, as
having specific colors. Due to the global extent of the Internet, we can
now begin to collect information about this phenomenon from a large
population of people in a short period of time. Our objective is to
determine the extent of those who see colored letters and examine
correlations which may exist among them.
***We would like to ask anyone who sees letters and/or numbers in color
to fill out a brief questionnaire of 26 letters and 10 numbers, and what
color you associate with each of them. Please copy this message and use
it to fill out the form below. Also, if you know of anyone who possesses
this ability, please direct them to this posting. Thank you.***
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This project is being conducted by Mitsuo Kobayashi and Alexander Simon
as part of a psycholinguistics course at the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, CA. We will collect data until June 6, 1996. If
there are encouraging results, we may extend this deadline for further
testing, and may add new features and consider suggestions from the
community at large.
Responses, questions, and/or comments may be emailed to either
mits at cco.caltech.edu or xander at cco.caltech.edu.
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First, a few basic things:
Age:
Gender:
Place of birth:
First language:
This form consists of every letter of the English alphabet and the
numbers 0-9. To the right of each letter/number, please identify the
color in which you see it. Please be as specific about the color as
possible. (i.e. light blue, dark blue, sky blue, etc.) If you do not
associate a color with a particular letter or number, leave the line
blank.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
We would also appreciate any comments about your responses which may help
us to understand the associations you make between letters/numbers and
colors. For example, do you know why you see these colors (i.e. did you
once read about a green bird and from then on associated 'b' with green?)
Does the color depend on the context of the letter/number (if so, give us
a few examples)?
Comments (feel free to type as much as you wish):
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Thank you for your time.
--Mitsuo Kobayashi,
Alexander Simon