Synesthesia-like Mappings of Lightness, Pitch, and Melodic Interval

I found this article to be very interesting, in that I have always had questions about the phenomenon of synesthesia. I know one music major who has been diagnosed with it, and he is quite fascinating to speak with. A major result of the study shows that subjects found lighter visual stimuli to fit with higher pitches, and darker visual stimuli to fit with lower pitches. The article discussed the underlying linguistic mediation of synesthesia-like mapping. This concept makes little sense to me, and I am still trying to understand the core meaning here. I found more understanding when the study discussed nonsynethetes engaging in synesthesia without it reaching their conscious. This is also interesting in relation to the idea that synesthesia is in everyone, but is later repressed. In turn, this supports the finding that the majority of synesthetes are children. Instead of discussing pitch as a single element, the study discussed both pitch height and location of pitch across octaves. This extended the range of the element of pitch in the study. I found that the three experiments were reliably set up. For instance, the first experiment had 400 trials according to the equation of 2 backgrounds x 5 luminances x 8 frequencies x 5 replications. The study found a wider response range with the usage of the black background. However, this was eliminated when the range of visual stimuli were presented. This is potentially because there were too many different elements of the variables for the subjects to comprehend. Experiment Two showed that subjects found lightness to relate to pitch in two distinct, separate ways. Experiment Three was interesting in its use of orchestral music evoking a certain color or adjective. I would definitely be interested in reading more about a study solely focused on this. It would be very interesting to perform this study using classical orchestral works that are considered to be masterpieces and well-known (potentially part of humanity's lives).