Synesthetic colors induced by graphemes that have not been consciously perceived.

Grapheme-color synesthetes experience colors when they see printed letters of the alphabet. Currently, we tested four "projector" synesthetes, whose colors evoked by graphemes have sensory support or quale and appear to be restricted spatially to the letters like real colors. We use three different kinds of puzzle pictures that contained hidden letters, which require 30 s or more for nonsynesthetes to identify. Grapheme-color projector synesthetes recognize them three times faster and report that the colors were evoked before conscious letter recognition, clueing them as to what the letters were. Subjectively, the synesthetic subjects reported that they also saw mirror-reversed letters in the same colors as nonreversed letters which enabled them to read mirror-reversed text at thrice the normal speed. We conclude that in some synesthetes colors are evoked preconsciously early in sensory processing.