Associating Words With Colors! (quick silly survey!!)

[tsu-bear]

Hello chickensmoothie, recently it has been brought to my attention that I can quickly associate any word with a specific color, sometimes it's multiple colors, sometimes the word has a pattern! I've been able to do it my whole life but only recently realized how much I do it subconsciously! There's names in my head that are always associated with colors when I say them out loud but I just never noticed because I do it all the time haha

I was talking to my friend and he says he doesn't have this! he has to think pretty hard about it and decide himself how he feels about the color, but it doesn't come naturally to him. Which was strange to us! and so he prompted me to start a survey to see how many different colors different people associate with different words! I think the results so far have been very interesting, I'll find a way to share results with you all asap because I am having a blast lol

here is the survey link: https://forms.gle/Z67cv8RfsdVBjX9M7
NOTHING personal is collected!! Just your answers!!
It's just 10 words, and you write down what color it is to you! last question is optional.
I did get permission from mods to post this :)

Feel free to share your thoughts on this matter! I find it SO interesting and love to hear other people's perspectives!
I have had multiple people respond that this is synesthesia and I mostly agree, but I'm still curious WHY specific colors
why is 7 orange to me I don't understand but it has been my whole life!
do you get this? is there a specific reason some words are certain colors to you? any other thoughts?! do share!!

[crantz]

Likely a subconscious association based on past experiences. You see the "what color is math" debate a lot; I always theorized that people's associations come from the colors of the math textbooks and/or folders they used for the subject in grade school. I associate math with black and blue because some of my first math books were those colors & I ended up using black/blue folders for math through high school and college, further solidifying the association. I'm sure there's research on this out there that isn't specific to synesthesia

Personally, I have stronger color associations for some of these words than others; some for obvious reasons and some not so much. I had a strong association with Thursday and brown because I associate Thursdays with Thanksgiving, which is a brown holiday to me! Fractals being teal is because my math textbook in 10th(?) grade had a teal fractal on it. But I also have no idea why Derek is red to me, I don't recall ever meeting a Derek but the name is very red... Chickens and Giraffes being white and yellow respectively seems pretty obvious though lel.

Anyways, sorry for rambling! It's an interesting subject. Do you plan to post results at some point? I'd like to see what other people think too ^-^

[tsu-bear]

I think it goes without saying guys but don't click the link in the quote that @dana.james posted lol I reported it!

@crantz
that's super interesting! I do think there's a lot of association because of real life things! The name Derek is red for me as well but that's because I know one and he has a lot of red associated with him haha when I dwell on the name Derek as this specific guy though, the colors change around and he's also navy blue and gold!
I do think it's funny that the name is red for you as well.

I've found in my experience that sometimes the first letter of the word that makes the color, especially if I'm just reading it quickly and not dwelling on the word too much. A lot of words with F (first, for, fall, fake, frivolous) are all orange to me for some reason and I don't quite have a real life association of F being orange ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ (or maybe I just haven't found it yet haha)

Once I get around to my PC I can PM you the spreadsheet with the results :D