So I decided to try something new to exercise my brain, and dabble with a bit of sudoku today. While playing, I realized something:
Being pseudo-synesthetic, I imagine numbers to have particular assigned colors to them. 1 is white, 2 is green, and so on. I don’t actually see those colors, but the best way to explain it is that when I see or imagine the numbers individually, my brain imagines them with their prescribed color.
So when looking at a sudoku board, specifically reading the numbers across or down a line, my brain imagines the different colors that are supposed to be there… Which makes it really easy to notice if one color is missing. If I look at a line and think, “There isn’t any white there,” I know the line still needs a 1. That’s how I figured out which numbers I usually needed to complete a mostly-filled row.
I can’t imagine how difficult sudoku must be to those who just imagine numbers with one uniform color! It seems like the slew of similar shapes would make it insanely more difficult, and would require much more careful discernment to figure it out. I feel like I would forget which number options are available for each square so much more quickly if they weren’t “color-coded.”
Any synesthetes here ever considered this? And what say those who have played sudoku before? Am I just over-thinking this or what?
Well, you could just do exactly the same thing except noticing that the number isn’t there.
I don’t think colouring the numbers is going to make Sudoku any easier for me. I’ll try it out, but I doubt it; making the 2’s green won’t make them any more distinct from the 1’s because they don’t look the same to start with. It doesn’t change the way the puzzle works.
I don’t think it would work that way. If you don’t really have synaesthesia, you don’t naturally associate colors with numbers so it’s not the same as what the OP is describing. It’s not that he consciously thinks, “two is green”. His brain just knows it. I have songs that have numbers attached to them and they just are (and get frustrated when the track number on the CD isn’t what the song’s number is. They don’t match!).
No synesthesia at all here. When I do Sudoku, a lot of time is spent looking at a row/column/box and figuring which numbers are missing. I basically have to go through all 9 in order and ask “Is there already a 1 here? Yes, there it is. Is there already a 2 here? Yes…” This is trivial, but relatively time-consuming. Of course, that’s kind of the whole point, sometimes, is to just take up time. I haven’t tested it, but I’m pretty sure I can solve it much faster when there are colors. Like this: http://www.boxerjam.com/games/wasabi/index.php?dontIncludeAd=true
On the other hand, for a synesthete such as the OP, that could actually make it harder, because the 1s are red when they “should be” white. I don’t know.
This sort of came up in a recent thread on sudokus. I hadn’t considered it before, but after reading that post I can definitely see the benefit of using colours instead of numbers.
I’m not a synysthete, but I am married to one…as soon as Rhiannon8404 comes home I’m going to show her this thread. She loves Sudoku, and seems to ‘see the board’ a ***lot ***better than I do. I wonder if this could be part of the reason?
Hi! While I do not number/color associate, I totally understand what you are saying.
I do Sodoku and the rows just don’t sound right when there is a mistake. It’s not that I actually hear the numbers audibly, but, I don’t know, my ears are aware when the row is wrong or incomplete. Like a song that is missing a note or a wrong note is being played.
As a result I think that Sodoku is generally very easy and even relaxing to do. Even the ones labeled “difficult.” I just look at the puzzle and see where the notes are missing and fill them in. When the puzzle sounds right, it’s done.