I study a neurological condition called grapheme-color synesthesia, using data from multiple languages. Grapheme-color synesthetes experience letters of the alphabet as having a consistent color. Although synesthesia may seem unusual, many people have unconscious intuitions about letter-color associations that are remarkably similar to those of synesthetes. Furthermore, specific grapheme-color associations (which letter is which color) are not random: they are influenced by properties of the letter, such as pronunciation, semantic associations, and letter shape. Synesthetic associations might thus reflect the brain's representation of letters. I aim to use synesthesia as a window into the brain, that lets us literally see how the brain thinks about letters.

In addition to synesthesia, I'm also interested in consciousness more generally: I study the ways in which our conscious percepts are more than just a veridical representation of basic sensory input. Currently, I collaborate with the Lipomi Nanoengineering Lab at the University of California San Diego, to study the psychophysics of complex tactile sensations such as "soft" or "slippery" using novel nanoengineered materials.