pseudo-chromesthesia
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
32
Scrabble Score
19
Letters
5
Syllables
13
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A type of synesthesia when sounds trigger involuntary, subjective sensations of color; during which a person might see colors when they hear music, specific pitches, words, or everyday noises (e.g. a "blue" sound or a "red" voice); a mental association rather than a true, external visual perception.
Obsolete
Example Sentences
- "The helpfulness of pseudo-chromesthesia is less obvious, yet it is reported in about one-fourth our cases. ' ' Colors do not look right," one subject writes, " unless a word is spelled right. For instance, I spelled permanent, the other day, with two a’s, and it did not look pale enough." Another is helped in writing rhymes, and a third in committing music to memory."
- "In The American Journal of Psychology for October, 1892, Dr. William O. Krohn treats of the curious phenomena of pseudo-chromesthesia, in which sound gives rise to colo sensation, and he explains it by the nearness of the auditory and visual centers in the brain cortex."
Etymology
From pseudo- + (from the Ancient Greek word pseudēs, meaning "false" or "lying") + chrom (from the Ancient Greek word chrōma, meaning "color" + -esthesia (from the Ancient Greek word aisthēsis, meaning "sensation" or "perception"). In 1848, French physician Dr. Charles-Auguste-Édouard Cornaz became the first person to give a name to the condition of synesthesia, at the time calling it hyperchromatopsia. This term fell out of favor after French physician Dr. Ernest Chabalier coined the term pseudochromesthésie (or pseudochromesthesia, "because of the perception of false colors"). The influence of Chabalier's term continued until the 1900s, when synesthésie eventually evolved into synesthesia.
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
pseudo-chromesthesias (plural)