What is the difference between synesthesia and ideasthesia?
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Synesthesia is an association of two unrelated concepts in the mind, most commonly associating letters or numbers with colors, though other examples can exist.
Ideasthesia is an association of concepts on an individual level, like deciding whether a round blob or a spikey blob should be called Bouba or Kiki.
They both describe much the same thing, the idea that people will assign labels to things naturally, but the two schools of thought operate differently.
In synesthesia, it’s usually treated as a problem, with people who have a pronounced sense describing concepts like “the taste of blue” or “the color of T”. People who don’t think that way are just “normal”
In ideasthesia, it’s a sense that everyone has, it’s just that some people have it greater than others, like some people have eagle eyes and some people are blind. But almost everyone would call the more round blob “Bouba” and the spike blob “Kiki”.
I don’t have an answer for you but my sister and I can both “taste” certain words. You could say a word and both of would answer with the same taste without knowing each other’s answer. Kinda weird.
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