Baffling question sparks debate over how people 'see' months of the year
This question left some people seriously confused.
A video posted on TikTok quickly went viral when a user posed the question about how people actually "see" different months of the year. Many users created videos in response to the original question - and it turns out that lots of people actually visualise the calendar year a bit differently.
This is a question that has been tackled on Reddit previously and even scientists have tried to answer it conclusively, but there doesn't seem to be a hard and fast rule about how people visualise the different months of the year, instead, there are many different ways - and none of them are necessarily incorrect.
LadBible reported that the content creator who posted the viral video explained that they see the months in a vertical line, starting with January at the top and then the following months cascading downwards in order.
The creator explained that this was different even from other people in her family - for example, her mother sees them in a list too, but going horizontally.
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The outlet reported that commenters were quick to provide their own interpretations of the calendar visualization, with some saying they see it in their mind's eye as a circle - but perceiving the months in different orders - and others noting they visualise the calendar in pyramids or spirals.
Research has been undertaken into this phenomenon, which showed that one percent of the population has what scientists have called "calendar synaesthesia".
This means that these people can visualise the calendar year in "vivid, crisp" detail, according to a study published in the journal 'Neurocase: Behavior, Cognition, and Neuroscience', back in 2016.
The participants in the study who had calendar synaesthesia didn't visualise the calendar in the same way - for instance, one perceived the months of the year to spread out in a 'V' shape just in front of her.
Another visualized the months of the year in what the researchers called a "body-centered" way. Per Science Alert, this participant viewed "the calendar shaped like a hula-hoop, with December always passing through her body no matter what month of the year it is".
The researchers undertook experiments that they claimed showed "for the first time, clear unambiguous proof for the veracity and true perceptual nature of the phenomenon".
The experiments showed that those who have calendar synaesthesia were able to answer questions about the calendar year faster than those without it, and even displayed involuntary movements as though they were consulting a real object.
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