What's going on inside the brain?
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It is speculated that OLP shares similar nerurologic activity than that of individuals with Grapheme-Color Synesthesia. Furthermore, an fMRI machine has noticed that in terms of personification, this attribution of human traits to numbers, letters, etc activated the occipital and fusiform gyrus, the amygdala, medial frontal, cortex, and various other areas. Some of these areas activated are associated with verbal comprehension, introspection, and imagination.
Commonness
OLP is one of the rarer forms of synesthesia, especially because researchers have paid little attention to it for the past 20+ years. Like other forms of synesthesia, OLP is subjective. What one individual attributes to the letter "A" might be different than someone else's association.
Synesthetes
Elizabth Williams, a contestant on season 31 of "Jeopardy!", spoke about her OLP. She told the host, Alex Trebek, that nine "has a mustache, like you."
"Three is such a jerk! He only thinks of himself. He does not care about any other numbers or anything. All he wants is to better himself and he’ll use any sneaky, underhanded means necessary. But he’s also pretty young; he doesn’t understand anything and he doesn’t have very much power ... So, he tries to hang out with Eight (who’s also a bad number) just so that he can feel better about himself. But really, none of the numbers can stand him. He’s a real jerk."
~ From a synesthete named T. E.
"Three is such a jerk! He only thinks of himself. He does not care about any other numbers or anything. All he wants is to better himself and he’ll use any sneaky, underhanded means necessary. But he’s also pretty young; he doesn’t understand anything and he doesn’t have very much power ... So, he tries to hang out with Eight (who’s also a bad number) just so that he can feel better about himself. But really, none of the numbers can stand him. He’s a real jerk."
~ From a synesthete named T. E.