In the Language and Genetics Department, we are interested in finding the genetic basis of synaesthesia. Our synaesthesia research program has two branches - a smaller study focused on families with many synaesthetes, and a large main study looking at unrelated people with synaesthesia. The two branches help us to understand synaesthesia genetics from different perspectives

Family study

If you think your family might be a good fit for our synaesthesia families project, please email us at synaesthesia [at] mpi.nl. It's ok if your family members have different types of synaesthesia!

Large grapheme-colour study

Our large study focuses on grapheme-colour synaesthesia. The tests ask you to choose the colour that you associate with Letters/Numbers, Weekdays, or Months.You do not have to travel to participate. All parts can be completed from home, anywhere in the world!

You can join our study online or through an app on your mobile phone. Our online research study, called the Synaesthesia Battery, takes about 25 minutes to complete, while our SynQuiz app offers a fun 5 minute version that you can take without participating in the research study.

If you want to tell us about your experience with synaesthesia, but our current tests are not relevant for you, simply fill out the survey portion on the website of The Synaesthesia battery and click Submit without taking the tests. We'll receive your information and can contact you if your experiences are a good match for a future study!

How to participate using Synaesthesia Battery*

Make sure you have about 25 minutes free to complete the tests.

Read the Participant Information Sheet carefully.

First, register here. After you’re registered, we ask for some basic information, and for you to tell us about what types of synaesthesia you experience. Then there are 3 synaesthesia tests available, and you can take just the ones that make sense for you.

When you are done taking the tests that apply to you, please click "Submit My Results".

Please ensure you enter ‘ synaesthesia [at] mpi.nl ’ in the “share your results with a researcher” box.

’ in the “share your results with a researcher” box. If your type of synaesthesia is suitable for our study, you will receive an email invitation to provide a small sample of saliva, from which we can obtain your DNA for the genetic studies. To participate in the genetics part of the study, please reply to that email with your mailing address so that we can send you the saliva collection kit.

*Have you taken The Synesthesia Battery at synesthete.org at some point in the past? You can use those results to join our study! Simply log on to synesthete.org and enter synaesthesia [at] mpi.nl in the "share your results with a researcher" email field.

How to participate with the SynQuiz App

Dowload the app Synquiz for your mobile phone from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. You can find the links to the download page above. (Caution! The app won’t work on an Android device with an operating system of 4.3.1 or lower). If you can’t download the app, you can also do the SynQuiz test on your computer. Click here to do the test (in English).

Read the participant information sheet very carefully.

Do the whole test.

Click on “Register”, fill in your information and click on “continue”.

When you’re done, click on the selection box and click on “register”.

Wait for the text “Registration completed”.

If your type of synaesthesia is suitable for our study, you will receive an email invitation to provide a small sample of saliva, from which we can obtain your DNA for the genetic studies. To participate in the genetics part of the study, please reply to that email with your mailing address so that we can send you the saliva collection kit.

Contact information

If you have any questions relating to this study, please feel free to contact the Project Leader using the information below:

Simon Fisher

Project Leader

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Tel +31 24 35 21943; Fax +31 24 35 21213

Email: synaesthesia [at] mpi.nl