Synesthesia

quote from a book review:
"Red Sparrow's unique ability to discern the nature of people by seeing their emotions in colors (through synesthesia).[2]"

[2] "'Red Sparrow', a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews". The Washington Post. October 14, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Sparrow_(book)


Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.[3][4][5][6] People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme-color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored.[7][8] In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).[9][10] Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia


‘Red Sparrow,’ a fantastic new spy thriller by former CIA operative Jason Matthews
quote from a book review:
Unbeknown to most, Dominika is gifted with a form of synesthesia that enables her to see emotions as colors — a condition that aids her immensely as she assesses the motives of both friend and foe. Several of her own comrades in the service, for example, are suffused with “the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal.” One character’s evil manifests itself as “parabolas of black . . . like bat wings.”
Dominika is ultimately targeted against Nate, of course, as a means of discovering the identity of the mole within her own ranks. His aura is deep purple, “warm and honest and safe,” but he has his own designs on this comely young agent.
“Red Sparrow” may sound like some hodgepodge of the fantastic (seeing emotions?) and the prurient (“an Upper Volga Kama Sutra”) amid a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans. But the novel is far more grounded. . . .

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/red-sparrow-a-fantastic-new-spy-thriller-by-former-cia-operative-jason-matthews/2013/10/15/3f7f9672-cc50-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html