Synesthesia, as a concept, was not always believed to be an actual phenomenon, although plenty of people reported colors associated with music or words, or processed colors as sounds. But even those who believed that wires might be crossed in the brain didn't think the phenomenon could be studied.
One of the earliest checks for a common kind of synesthesia developed from a test for color blindness. Show them a red number on a green background and, as long as the background and the number are equally dark, they won't be able to see the number while anyone else can see it as plain as day. Doctors reversed this test to check for one of the most common types of synesthesia — seeing different characters as different colors.
A densely cross-hatched group of lines were put on a card. On top of these lines were drawn numbers or letters. Both the lines and the numerals or letters were the same color and thickness, and control test subjects just saw dark lines interlocking. Some of them eventually picked out the letter. The synesthesiacs saw the characters right away, as easily as most people would see a green number on a red grid. Another popular test shows jumbled 2s and 5s. The ordinary viewer can't pick them out, but they show up to people who associate the different numbers with colors.
Often these people repeat their reports of tastes, years after their initial interview and tests. One woman had a list of words she couldn't stand because of the terrible tastes associated with them - Cincinnati, number, portable, squirm, and phony. Another test showed that synesthesia might go even deeper than words. When lexical-gustatory people were shown images, they sometimes got taste sensations even when they couldn't identify what the image was. (A phonograph made one woman taste Dutch chocolate. The taste was repeated when the scientists called her months later.)
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