Journal articles on the topic 'Synaesthesia'
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1
O'Dowd, Alan, Sarah M. Cooney, David P. McGovern, and Fiona N. Newell. "Do synaesthesia and mental imagery tap into similar cross-modal processes?" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20180359. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0359.
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Synaesthesia has previously been linked with imagery abilities, although an understanding of a causal role for mental imagery in broader synaesthetic experiences remains elusive. This can be partly attributed to our relatively poor understanding of imagery in sensory domains beyond vision. Investigations into the neural and behavioural underpinnings of mental imagery have nevertheless identified an important role for imagery in perception, particularly in mediating cross-modal interactions. However, the phenomenology of synaesthesia gives rise to the assumption that associated cross-modal interactions may be encapsulated and specific to synaesthesia. As such, evidence for a link between imagery and perception may not generalize to synaesthesia. Here, we present results that challenge this idea: first, we found enhanced somatosensory imagery evoked by visual stimuli of body parts in mirror-touch synaesthetes, relative to other synaesthetes or controls. Moreover, this enhanced imagery generalized to tactile object properties not directly linked to their synaesthetic associations. Second, we report evidence that concurrent experience evoked in grapheme—colour synaesthesia was sufficient to trigger visual-to-tactile correspondences that are common to all. Together, these findings show that enhanced mental imagery is a consistent hallmark of synaesthesia, and suggest the intriguing possibility that imagery may facilitate the cross-modal interactions that underpin synaesthesic experiences. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Lalwani, Poortata, and David Brang. "Stochastic resonance model of synaesthesia." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20190029. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0029.
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In synaesthesia, stimulation of one sensory modality evokes additional experiences in another modality (e.g. sounds evoking colours). Along with these cross-sensory experiences, there are several cognitive and perceptual differences between synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes. For example, synaesthetes demonstrate enhanced imagery, increased cortical excitability and greater perceptual sensitivity in the concurrent modality. Previous models suggest that synaesthesia results from increased connectivity between corresponding sensory regions or disinhibited feedback from higher cortical areas. While these models explain how one sense can evoke qualitative experiences in another, they fail to predict the broader phenotype of differences observed in synaesthetes. Here, we propose a novel model of synaesthesia based on the principles of stochastic resonance. Specifically, we hypothesize that synaesthetes have greater neural noise in sensory regions, which allows pre-existing multisensory pathways to elicit supra-threshold activation (i.e. synaesthetic experiences). The strengths of this model are (a) it predicts the broader cognitive and perceptual differences in synaesthetes, (b) it provides a unified framework linking developmental and induced synaesthesias, and (c) it explains why synaesthetic associations are inconsistent at onset but stabilize over time. We review research consistent with this model and propose future studies to test its limits. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Just, Dyedra K. C. "Was Kandinsky a Synaesthete? Examining His Writings and Other Evidence." Multisensory Research 30, no. 3-5 (2017): 447–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134808-00002547.
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Wassily Kandinsky is widely regarded as one of the most prominent examples of a synaesthetic artist. However, in the scientific literature there is disagreement on the genuineness of his synaesthesia. This paper investigates whether Kandinsky had inborn synaesthesia, while acknowledging that there are also types of induced synaesthesia which he may have cultivated. As these two types of synaesthesia are seen to work additively in some synaesthetes and not to be mutually exclusive, this is not seen as an argument against the view that he was a true inborn synaesthete. Whether Kandinsky was a synaesthete is examined through a detailed study of his primary writings (e.g., On the Spiritual in Art, Point and Line to Plane, and Reminiscences), in light of the modern diagnostic criteria. The experiences described in those writings indicate that his synaesthetic perceptions were genuine and inborn and not just a theoretical endeavour. Given the genetic dimension of synaesthesia, this view is further supported by the fact that Kandinsky’s uncle Victor Kandinsky also described having synaesthetic experiences.
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Noeske, Nina. "„Ein violetter Ort von blecherner Beschaffenheit und ebensolchem Klang“ Ligetis Synästhesien." Studia Musicologica 57, no. 1-2 (June 2016): 49–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/6.2016.57.1-2.4.
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The article focuses on Ligeti’s synaesthesia: after referring to some early ‘synaesthetic’ compositions often mentioned by the composer, the phenomenon of synaesthesia in general is examined. It turns out that Ligeti’s fondness of synaesthesia has to be seen in relation to his ‘postmodern’ emphasis on spatiality in music – and thereby with his attempts to overcome transitoriness and death.
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Mankin, Jennifer L. "Deepening understanding of language through synaesthesia: a call to reform and expand." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20180350. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0350.
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In this paper, I present arguments and suggestions for the improvement of the scientific study of synaesthesia, and particularly grapheme-colour synaesthesia in relation to psycholinguistic research, although the principles I advocate can be easily adapted to any subfield of synaesthesia study. I postulate that the current state of research on synaesthesia in general, and on grapheme-colour synaesthesia in particular, suffers from a lack of exploratory evidence and essential groundwork upon which to build hypothesis-testing studies. In particular, I argue that synaesthesia research has been artificially bounded by assumptions about the nature of synaesthetic experiences, which constrain both the questions that researchers ask and the way in which they go about answering those questions. As a specific example, I detail how much of the current research on grapheme-colour synaesthesia is built to accommodate two major assumptions about the nature of colours for letters and for words—assumptions which I will contend are not universally true, and the exceptions to which point to a much richer and heterogeneous understanding of synaesthetic experience than current research practices capture. The top-down predetermination of what is important or meaningful to measure, and what is not, has subsequently impeded a full understanding of what synaesthesia is and how it works. I argue that these assumptions must be carefully addressed and evaluated, both for the particular case of grapheme-colour synaesthesia and for the field as a whole, to move towards a holistic and fruitful understanding of synaesthesia as a phenomenon and as a tool to study language, thought and perception. To that end, I propose specific recommendations for synaesthesia researchers to solidify and expand their understanding and to capture the actual experience of synaesthetes. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Schwartzman, David J., Daniel Bor, Nicolas Rothen, and Anil K. Seth. "Neurophenomenology of induced and natural synaesthesia." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20190030. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0030.
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People with synaesthesia have additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli. Synaesthesia therefore offers a unique window into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying conscious perception. A long-standing question in synaesthesia research is whether it is possible to artificially induce non-synaesthetic individuals to have synaesthesia-like experiences. Although synaesthesia is widely considered a congenital condition, increasing evidence points to the potential of a variety of approaches to induce synaesthesia-like experiences, even in adulthood. Here, we summarize a range of methods for artificially inducing synaesthesia-like experiences, comparing the resulting experiences to the key hallmarks of natural synaesthesia which include consistency, automaticity and a lack of ‘perceptual presence’. We conclude that a number of aspects of synaesthesia can be artificially induced in non-synaesthetes. These data suggest the involvement of developmental and/or learning components in the acquisition of synaesthesia, and they extend previous reports of perceptual plasticity leading to dramatic changes in perceptual phenomenology in adults. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Glicksohn, Joseph, Orna Salinger, and Anat Roychman. "An Exploratory Study of Syncretic Experience: Eidetics, Synaesthesia and Absorption." Perception 21, no. 5 (October 1992): 637–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/p210637.
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Synaesthesia and eidetic imagery are both syncretic experiences entailing a dedifferentiation of perceptual qualities. In this paper the correlation between synaesthesia and eidetic imagery is explored. Ten subjects selected for possible eidetic and/or synaesthetic ability were tested in a battery of tasks that tap structural and typographic eidetic imagery, and colour—hearing and colour—mood synaesthesia. It was found that both structural and typographic eidetic imagery were correlated with measures of synaesthesia, indicating a relationship between the two phenomena.
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Ronga, Irene, Carla Bazzanella, Ferdinando Rossi, and Giandomenico Iannetti. "Linguistic synaesthesia, perceptual synaesthesia, and the interaction between multiple sensory modalities." Pragmatics and Cognition 20, no. 1 (May 7, 2012): 135–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pc.20.1.06ron.
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Recent studies on cortical processing of sensory information highlight the importance of multisensory integration, and define precise rules governing reciprocal influences between inputs of different sensory modalities. We propose that psychophysical interactions between different types of sensory stimuli and linguistic synaesthesia share common origins and mechanisms. To test this hypothesis, we compare neurophysiological findings with corpus-based analyses relating to linguistic synaesthesia. Namely, we present Williams’ hypothesis and its recent developments about the hierarchy of synaesthetic pairings, and examine critical aspects of this theory concerning universality, directionality, sensory categories, and usage of corpora. These theoretical issues are verified against linguistic data derived from corpus-based analyses of Italian synaesthetic pairings related to auditory and tactile modalities. Our findings reveal a strong parallel between linguistic synaesthesia and neurophysiological interactions between different sensory stimuli, suggesting that linguistic synaesthesia is affected by tendencies similar to the rules underlying the perceptual association of distinct sensory modalities.
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Strik Lievers, Francesca. "Synaesthesia." Functions of Language 22, no. 1 (May 1, 2015): 69–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/fol.22.1.04str.
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In the existing literature on synaesthetic metaphors in poetry it is proposed that transfers tend to go from the ‘lower’ (touch, smell, taste) to the ‘higher’ (sight, hearing) sensory modalities. The purpose of this article is to establish if the same directionality also holds for synaesthetic associations found in other text types. To this end, a method for the semi-automatic extraction of synaesthesia is introduced and applied to general-purpose corpora of English (ukWaC) and Italian (itWaC). In the data collected for these languages, most transfers proceed in the expected direction, e.g. sweet voice, but instances of ‘backward’ transfers are also found, e.g. bitter cold. Based on these results, it is claimed that the ‘directionality principle’ reflects the frequency of association types, rather than representing universal constraints on synaesthetic transfers, as has often been more or less explicitly assumed. It is here argued that both properties of human perception and more strictly linguistic factors can account for the frequency tendencies observed in synaesthesia. The proposed interpretation is also shown to account for apparently contradictory evidence coming from typological studies on verbs of perception.
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Ward, Jamie. "Synaesthesia: a distinct entity that is an emergent feature of adaptive neurocognitive differences." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20180351. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0351.
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In this article, I argue that synaesthesia is not on a continuum with neurotypical cognition. Synaesthesia is special: its phenomenology is different; it has distinct causal mechanisms; and is likely to be associated with a distinct neurocognitive profile. However, not all synaesthetes are the same, and there are quantifiable differences between them. In particular, the number of types of synaesthesia that a person possesses is a hitherto underappreciated variable that predicts cognitive differences along a number of dimensions (mental imagery, sensory sensitivity, attention to detail). Together with enhanced memory, this may constitute a common core of abilities that may go some way to explaining why synaesthesia might have evolved. I argue that the direct benefits of synaesthesia are generally limited (i.e. the synaesthetic associations do not convey novel information about the world) but, nevertheless, synaesthesia may develop due to other adaptive functions (e.g. perceptual ability, memory) that necessitate changes to design features of the brain. The article concludes by suggesting that synaesthesia forces us to reconsider what we mean by a ‘normal’ mind/brain. There may be multiple ‘normal’ neurodevelopmental trajectories that can sculpt very different ways of experiencing the world, of which synaesthesia is but one. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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LOHVINAVA, I. "SYNAESTHETIC METAPHORISATION IN R.M. RILKE'S POEMS AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS INTO RUSSIAN." Herald of Polotsk State University. Series A. Humanity sciences 66, no. 1 (February 10, 2023): 148–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.52928/2070-1608-2023-66-1-148-152.
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The article deals with the phenomenon of synaesthetic metaphorisation in Russian and German. Synaesthesia as an intermodal phenomenon is described. A brief characteristic of empirical adjectives (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory perception) is presented. Primary synaesthesia as a transfer of a feature of one type of perception to another and secondary synaesthesia as a transfer of a feature of one type of perception to human psychological experiences, emotions and feelings are described. The article provides examples of primary and secondary synaesthetic metaphorization identified in the poems of the German modernist poet R.M. Rilke and their translations into Russian, performed by Russian poet-translators in the late XIX century and early XX century. An attempt is made to identify potential semes actualized by reference nouns as a part of adjective sememes, and to describe the change in the meaning of the latter. The article compares the use of synaesthetic metaphors in the original and translated languages.
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Bargary, Gary, Kylie J. Barnett, Kevin J. Mitchell, and Fiona N. Newell. "Colored-Speech Synaesthesia Is Triggered by Multisensory, Not Unisensory, Perception." Psychological Science 20, no. 5 (May 2009): 529–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02338.x.
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Although it is estimated that as many as 4% of people experience some form of enhanced cross talk between (or within) the senses, known as synaesthesia, very little is understood about the level of information processing required to induce a synaesthetic experience. In work presented here, we used a well-known multisensory illusion called the McGurk effect to show that synaesthesia is driven by late, perceptual processing, rather than early, unisensory processing. Specifically, we tested 9 linguistic-color synaesthetes and found that the colors induced by spoken words are related to what is perceived (i.e., the illusory combination of audio and visual inputs) and not to the auditory component alone. Our findings indicate that color-speech synaesthesia is triggered only when a significant amount of information processing has occurred and that early sensory activation is not directly linked to the synaesthetic experience.
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Asano, Michiko, So-ichiro Takahashi, Takuya Tsushiro, and Kazuhiko Yokosawa. "Synaesthetic colour associations for Japanese Kanji characters: from the perspective of grapheme learning." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20180349. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0349.
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One of the fundamental questions about grapheme–colour synaesthesia is how specific associations between the graphemes and colours are formed. We addressed this question by focusing on the determinants of synaesthetic colours for Japanese Kanji characters (logographic characters) using a psycholinguistic approach. Study 1 explored the influence meaning has on synaesthetic colours for Kanji characters representing abstract meanings by examining synaesthetic colours for antonym pairs (i.e. characters with meanings opposed to each other) in Japanese synaesthetes. Results showed that semantic relations influenced the grapheme–colour associations for characters representing abstract meanings in the early stages of learning abstract Kanji, while the influence was reduced in the grapheme–colour associations for those learned later. Study 2 examined the effect that learning new sounds or meanings of graphemes has on synaesthetic colours for those graphemes. Japanese synaesthetes were taught new sounds or new meanings for familiar Kanji characters. Results indicated that acquiring new information for graphemes slightly but significantly reduced the test–retest grapheme–colour association consistency, suggesting that synaesthetic colours can be modulated to reflect the synaesthete's latest knowledge about graphemes. Implications of these findings are discussed from the perspective of the relationship between synaesthesia and grapheme learning. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Johnson, Addie, Marieke Jepma, and Ritske De Jong. "Colours Sometimes Count: Awareness and Bidirectionality in Grapheme–Colour Synaesthesia." Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 60, no. 10 (October 2007): 1406–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470210601063597.
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Three experiments were conducted with 10 grapheme–colour synaesthetes and 10 matched controls to investigate (a) whether awareness of the inducer grapheme is necessary for synaesthetic colour induction and (b) whether grapheme–colour synaesthesia may be bidirectional in the sense that not only do graphemes induce colours, but that colours influence the processing of graphemes. Using attentional blink and Stroop paradigms with digit targets, we found that some synaesthetes did report “seeing” synaesthetic colours even when they were not able to report the inducing digit. Moreover, congruency effects (effects of matching the colour of digit presentation with the synaesthetic colour associated with that digit) suggested that grapheme–colour synaesthesia can be bidirectional, at least for some synaesthetes.
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Nikolinakos, Derek D. "Synaesthesia and Encapsulation." Journal of Consciousness Studies 29, no. 11 (December 1, 2022): 131–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.53765/20512201.29.11.131.
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The concept of informational encapsulation has been important in promoting a view of the mind that has dominated cognitive science. Multisensory phenomena, such as synaesthesia, have been used as evidence for challenging this view. The main objective of this paper is to provide a more detailed understanding of the nature of such a challenge by examining the two types of grapheme–colour synaesthesia, projectors and associators. It is argued that the phenomena under consideration exemplify partial encapsulation failure and that it is expressed in three forms: intramodal, intermodal, and top-down. Additional support for these claims is provided by considering some evidence on synaesthetic-like experiences in relation to the continuity thesis.
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Tilot, Amanda K., Arianna Vino, Katerina S. Kucera, Duncan A. Carmichael, Loes van den Heuvel, Joery den Hoed, Anton V. Sidoroff-Dorso, et al. "Investigating genetic links between grapheme–colour synaesthesia and neuropsychiatric traits." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20190026. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0026.
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Synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon affecting perception, where triggering stimuli (e.g. letters and numbers) elicit unusual secondary sensory experiences (e.g. colours). Family-based studies point to a role for genetic factors in the development of this trait. However, the contributions of common genomic variation to synaesthesia have not yet been investigated. Here, we present the SynGenes cohort, the largest genotyped collection of unrelated people with grapheme–colour synaesthesia ( n = 723). Synaesthesia has been associated with a range of other neuropsychological traits, including enhanced memory and mental imagery, as well as greater sensory sensitivity. Motivated by the prior literature on putative trait overlaps, we investigated polygenic scores derived from published genome-wide scans of schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), comparing our SynGenes cohort to 2181 non-synaesthetic controls. We found a very slight association between schizophrenia polygenic scores and synaesthesia (Nagelkerke's R 2 = 0.0047, empirical p = 0.0027) and no significant association for scores related to ASD (Nagelkerke's R 2 = 0.00092, empirical p = 0.54) or body mass index ( R 2 = 0.00058, empirical p = 0.60), included as a negative control. As sample sizes for studying common genomic variation continue to increase, genetic investigations of the kind reported here may yield novel insights into the shared biology between synaesthesia and other traits, to complement findings from neuropsychology and brain imaging. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia'.
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Beeli, Gian, Michaela Esslen, and Lutz Jäncke. "Frequency Correlates in Grapheme-Color Synaesthesia." Psychological Science 18, no. 9 (September 2007): 788–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01980.x.
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Individuals with synaesthesia experience certain stimuli in more than one sensory modality. Most common is the linkage of letters and digits (graphemes) to colors. Whereas synaesthesia might be partly genetically determined, the linkages to specific colors are assumed to be learned. We present a systematic statistical analysis of synaesthetic color perception based on subjects' reproduction of individual colors for each grapheme, instead of simple verbal categorizations. The statistical analysis revealed that the color perceptions, measured with the HSL (hue, saturation, and luminance) scale, varied systematically among the different digits and letters. The frequencies of the digits and letters (in the German language) partly explained these systematic variations. However, digit frequency was more strongly related to color perception in the synaesthetes than was letter frequency. The results for digit and letter frequency indicate that experience with graphemes may shape synaesthetic color perception.
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Root, Nicholas B., Karen Dobkins, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, and Romke Rouw. "Echoes from the past: synaesthetic colour associations reflect childhood gender stereotypes." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20180572. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0572.
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Grapheme–colour synaesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which linguistic symbols evoke consistent colour sensations. Synaesthesia is believed to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors, but how these factors interact to create specific associations in specific individuals is poorly understood. In this paper, we show that a grapheme–colour association in adult synaesthetes can be traced to a particular environmental effect at a particular moment in childhood. We propose a model in which specific grapheme–colour associations are ‘locked in’ during development in children predisposed to become synaesthetes, whereas grapheme–colour associations remain flexible in non-synaesthetes. We exploit Western gender–colour stereotypes to test our model: we found that young girls in general tend to associate their first initial with the colour pink. Consistent with our model, adult female synaesthetes are influenced by their childhood environment: they associate their first initial with pink. Adult female non-synaesthetes do not show this bias. Instead, in our study, non-synaesthetes tended to associate their first initial with their current favourite colour. The results thus support the ‘locking in’ model of synaesthesia, suggesting that synaesthetic associations can be used as a ‘time capsule’, revealing childhood influences on adult linguistic associations. Grapheme–colour synaesthesia may thus offer an extraordinary opportunity to study linguistic development. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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C.N., Ibe, Ochiagha I.S., and Chukwu K.U. "Synaesthetic Metaphor as a Language Style in Remi Raji’s Poetry." International Journal of Literature, Language and Linguistics 5, no. 1 (June 13, 2022): 98–109. http://dx.doi.org/10.52589/ijlll-qg5xbl5d.
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Every poet possesses a style of writing that makes his poetry different from that of others. His style of writing predominantly aids in expressing meaning to his readers. A poet’s style may be assessed in terms of language use, pattern of thematic exploration, poetic structure or figurative expression, etc. Be it as it may, there is no wide gap between his language style and meaning exploration (that is, the literary message he intends to express). This paper therefore is a study of Remi Raji’s poetry with the intention of examining the use of synaesthesia as a language style in his poetry. Adopting Burrow’s (2012) pattern, the research sets out to determine the situation that may have aroused the poet’s use of synaesthesia. According to Burrow’s argument, synaesthetic capacity was stimulated by cultural, social and technological conditions. However, we have limited our investigations to the socio-political conditions which the poems explored and the significance of synaesthesia in portraying them. The research interest therefore was not just to identify synaesthesia as a device but mainly to find out the contextual effects and how they may have helped to stimulate meaning in Remi Raji’s poetry. The poems studied were randomly selected and the method of analysis was qualitative. The conclusion of the paper is that the manifestation of synaesthesia in Remi Raji’s poems is by no means a fortition; rather, it has stylistic significance which aids the conveyance of the literary messages of the poet.
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Spiller, Mary Jane, Lee Harkry, Fintan McCullagh, Volker Thoma, and Clare Jonas. "Exploring the relationship between grapheme colour-picking consistency and mental imagery." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20190023. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0023.
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Previous research has indicated a potential link between mental imagery and synaesthesia. However, these findings are mainly based on imagery self-report measures and recruitment of self-selected synaesthetes. To avoid issues of self-selection and demand effects, we recruited participants from the general population, rather than synaesthetes specifically, and used colour-picking consistency tests for letters and numbers to assess a ‘synaesthete-like’ experience. Mental imagery ability and mental rotation ability were assessed using both self-report measures and behavioural assessments. Consistency in colour-picking for letters (but not numbers) was predicted by performance on the visual mental imagery task but not by a mental rotation task or self-report measures. Using the consistency score as a proxy measure of grapheme-colour synaesthesia, we provide more evidence for the suggestion that synaesthetic experience is associated with enhanced mental imagery, even when participants are naive to the research topic. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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Mas-Casadesús, Anna, and Elena Gherri. "Ignoring Irrelevant Information: Enhanced Intermodal Attention in Synaesthetes." Multisensory Research 30, no. 3-5 (2017): 253–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134808-00002566.
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Despite the fact that synaesthetes experience additional percepts during their inducer-concurrent associations that are often unrelated or irrelevant to their daily activities, they appear to be relatively unaffected by this potentially distracting information. This might suggest that synaesthetes are particularly good at ignoring irrelevant perceptual information coming from different sensory modalities. To investigate this hypothesis, the performance of a group of synaesthetes was compared to that of a matched non-synaesthete group in two different conflict tasks aimed at assessing participants’ abilities to ignore irrelevant information. In order to match the sensory modality of the task-irrelevant distractors (vision) with participants’ synaesthetic attentional filtering experience, we tested only synaesthetes experiencing at least one synaesthesia subtype triggering visual concurrents (e.g., grapheme–colour synaesthesia or sequence–space synaesthesia). Synaesthetes and controls performed a classic flanker task (FT) and a visuo-tactile cross-modal congruency task (CCT) in which they had to attend to tactile targets while ignoring visual distractors. While no differences were observed between synaesthetes and controls in the FT, synaesthetes showed reduced interference by the irrelevant distractors of the CCT. These findings provide the first direct evidence that synaesthetes might be more efficient than non-synaesthetes at dissociating conflicting information from different sensory modalities when the irrelevant modality correlates with their synaesthetic concurrent modality (here vision).
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Shurma, Svitlana, and Anna Chesnokova. "EMILY DICKINSON’S POETRY IN UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN TRANSLATION: SYNAESTHETIC SHIFT." Vertimo studijos 10, no. 10 (January 18, 2018): 95. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/vertstud.2017.10.11291.
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This paper focuses on synaesthetic shift occurring in translation of Emily Dickinson’s poetry into Ukrainian and Russian. The research is in line with Redka’s (2009) view of verbal and poetic synaesthesia, a trope which is structurally represented as a word combination, a sentence or even a poem, and manifests itself in the text as the author’s perception of objective reality via visual, colour, tactile, olfactory, auditory and gustatory sensation. We aim to describe two types of poetic synaesthesia: metaphoric, which is realized in the text as an image and is represented in cognition as conceptual metaphor or metonymy; and non-metaphoric, which is triggered by a combination of verbal images and phonetic instrumentation and versification. We thus hypothesise that synaesthetic shift between source and target images leads to the change of the original image and results from changes in versification and phonetic instrumentation patterns in poetry, verbal images and conceptual cross-domain mapping.
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Arend, Isabel, and Avishai Henik. "What Can Illusory Conjunctions Reveal About Synaesthetic Bindings?" Multisensory Research 30, no. 3-5 (2017): 235–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134808-00002555.
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The visual system successfully binds the shapes and colours of objects; therefore, our visual experience regarding the objects around us is coherent. However, this binding process can break down when attention is diverted, producing illusory conjunctions (ICs); for example, when presented with a red 2 and a green 5, the observer may report a green 2 and a red 5. The strongest observation of binding in human cognition is found in synaesthesia. In grapheme–colour synaesthesia, linguistic stimuli (e.g., letters or numbers) are strongly associated with colours. It is debatable whether these highly stable bindings constitute a form of early binding that occurs outside the focus of attention. We examined for the first time the occurrence of ICs in grapheme–colour synaesthesia. Experiment 1 replicated our previous finding, showing the effects of numerical distance on ICs (Arend et al., Psychon. Bull. Rev. 2013, 20, 1181–1186). Participants viewed a display containing two centrally presented letters and two coloured numbers and were asked to report: (1) whether the letters were same/different, (2) the colour of the larger number, and (3) the level of confidence concerning the colour of the number. Experiment 2 used a modified version of this task. Synaesthetes () and controls () viewed number–colour pairs that were congruent or incongruent with that of the synaesthetic association. Grapheme–colour synaesthesia significantly affected ICs on incongruent but not on congruent trials. Our findings strongly support the notion that shape and colour are free-floating features in synaesthesia, similar to what is observed in normal cognition.
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Ruismäki, Heikki, and Antti Juvonen. "Life in Sounds, Colours and Atmospheres: A Case Study on Synaesthesia." Journal of Pedagogy and Psychology "Signum Temporis" 4, no. 1 (December 1, 2011): 82–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/v10195-011-0047-0.
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Abstract In this article we focus on the world of colour associations and atmospheres experienced by a famous and successful piano pedagogue. The aim of the study is to open one point of view inside the phenomenon of synaesthesia through one case which is truly reliable. This case study is based on personal interviews with the pedagogue (August 16-19, 1999, and April 27, 2010), and the findings are anchored theoretically in the synaesthetic experience. The article subtitles are the themes and subjects used in the interviews, and the free association discussions have been shaped into more structured form. To express the events in a way that is similar to the real life experiences, we have quoted the interviewee directly in our text. The article shows one individual´s way of experiencing, seeing and feeling the world of sounds and voices. It is concluded that the synaesthesia experiences of the target of the case study were genuine and they were repeated in two different interviews. Synaesthesia is a real phenomenon and not fake in any point of view
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Zhao, Qingqing, Chu-Ren Huang, and Yunfei Long. "Synaesthesia in Chinese: A corpus-based study on gustatory adjectives in Mandarin." Linguistics 56, no. 5 (August 28, 2018): 1167–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ling-2018-0019.
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Abstract This study adopted a corpus-based approach to examine the synaesthetic metaphors of gustatory adjectives in Mandarin. Based on the distribution of synaesthetic uses in the corpus, we found that: (1) the synaesthetic metaphors of Mandarin gustatory adjectives exhibited directionality; (2) the directionality of Mandarin synaesthetic gustatory adjectives showed both commonality and specificity when compared with the attested directionality of gustatory adjectives in English, which calls for a closer re-examination of the claim of cross-lingual universality of synaesthetic tendencies; and (3) the distribution and directionality of Mandarin synaesthetic gustatory adjectives could not be predicted by a single hypothesis, such as the embodiment-driven approach or the biological association-driven approach. Thus, linguistic synaesthesia was constrained by both the embodiment principle and the biological association mechanism.
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Rouw, Romke, and Nicholas B. Root. "Distinct colours in the ‘synaesthetic colour palette’." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 374, no. 1787 (October 21, 2019): 20190028. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0028.
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In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, particular linguistic elements evoke particular colour sensations. Interestingly, when asked, non-synaesthetes can also associate colours to letters, and previous studies show that specific letter-to-colour associations have similar biases to those of synaesthetes. However, it is an open question whether the colours reported by synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes differ overall : is there a ‘synaesthetic colour palette’? In this study, we visualize the overall distribution in colour space of colour concurrents in grapheme-colour synaesthetes, and colour associations in non-synaesthetic controls. We confirm the existence of a synaesthetic colour palette: colour concurrents in synaesthetes are different from colour associations in non-synaesthetes. We quantify three factors that distinguish the colour palette of synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes: synaesthetes have an increased over-representation of ‘pure’ (unmixed) hues, an increased presence of ‘warm’ (yellow, orange, brown) colours, and an increased presence of achromatic (grey, white, black) colours. Furthermore, we demonstrate that differences in the synaesthetic colour palette can be used to train a machine learning algorithm to reliably classify single subjects as synaesthetes versus non-synaesthetes without using test–retest consistency data. As far as we know, this is the first time an individual could be ‘diagnosed’ as a synaesthete, based only on his or her colours evoked by letters. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
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DuBois, R. Luke. "Time-Lapse Phonography and the Visual Processing of Music." Journal of Visual Culture 10, no. 2 (August 2011): 247–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1470412911402910.
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Synaesthesia, as a rich metaphor for artistic discussion and collaboration, has been with us for quite some time, as visual and musical artists (with or without actual synaesthesia) have mined each other’s forms for inspiration in their own. The capability of computers to seamlessly ‘transcode’ digital media, whether they are sound, image, video, or any other information, from one sense-domain to another, has provided an interesting opportunity to reintroduce ideas of synaesthetic art into new media practice through the malleability of digital representation. This article looks at some of the author’s own work in composing music through visual idioms (and visual art through musical techniques) by using transcoding strategies. These techniques for audio-visual art provide an interesting lens through which cultural understanding of media can be critiqued and interrogated.
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Anonymous and S. Logsdail. "Synaesthesia." BMJ 339, sep04 2 (September 4, 2009): b3191. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b3191.
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Horsfall, Nicholas. "Synaesthesia." Classical Review 55, no. 2 (October 2005): 491–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/clrevj/bni272.
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Pearce, J. M. S. "Synaesthesia." European Neurology 57, no. 2 (December 18, 2006): 120–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000098101.
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Mulvenna, Catherine, and Vincent Walsh. "Synaesthesia." Current Biology 15, no. 11 (June 2005): R399—R400. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2005.05.039.
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Eagleman, D. M. "Synaesthesia." BMJ 340, jan08 1 (January 8, 2010): b4616. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b4616.
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White, Rebekah C., Tsvetomira Dumbalska, Mihaela D. Duta, and Kate Nation. "“17” is odd and “seventeen” is even: Meaning and physical form in stimulus-parity synaesthesia." Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 71, no. 9 (January 1, 2018): 2005–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1747021817738712.
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For individuals with stimulus-parity synaesthesia, eliciting stimuli (e.g., shapes, numbers, letters, colours) trigger a compelling feeling of oddness or evenness. Given that (a) many inducers are conceptual and (b) parity is itself a conceptual property, one questions whether stimulus-parity synaesthesia will be a categorically higher subtype, such that the conceptual properties of stimuli will be crucial in determining parity. We explore this question as it applies to Synaesthete R, one of only two stimulus-parity synaesthetes known to the contemporary literature. In Experiments 1 and 2, we examine whether parity is tied to concepts or percepts, asking, for example, whether a rectangle is even regardless of whether it is presented as an image or a word. Our results indicate that the parity of shapes (words and images), numbers (words, digits, and Roman numerals), and letters (lowercase and uppercase) differs according to the stimulus format, supporting a perceptual explanation. In Experiment 3, we examine the parity of colour stimuli, showing a systematic relationship between the measurable physical properties of hue, saturation, and lightness and synaesthetic parity. Despite the conceptual nature of inducers and concurrents, for Synaesthete R, stimulus-parity synaesthesia is a lower subtype; perceptual properties of stimuli determine parity.
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Bogdashina, O. B. "Synaesthesia in Autism." Autism and Developmental Disorders 14, no. 3 (2016): 21–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.17759/autdd.2016140302.
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Synaesthesia — a phenomenon of perception, when stimulation of one sensory modality triggers a perception in one or more other sensory modalities. Synaesthesia is not uniform and can manifest itself in different ways. As the sensations and their interpretation vary in different periods of time, it makes it hard to study this phenom¬enon. The article presents the classification of different forms of synaesthesia, including sensory and cognitive; and bimodal and multimodal synaesthesia. Some synaesthetes have several forms and variants of synaesthesia, while others – just one form of it. Although synaesthesia is not specific to autism spectrum disorders, it is quite common among autistic individuals. The article deals with the most common forms of synaesthesia in autism, advantages and problems of synesthetic perception in children with autism spectrum disorders, and provides some advice to parents how to recognise synaesthesia in children with autism.
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Ginter, Anna. "Multisensoryczność "Listów do Very" Vladimira Nabokova." Acta Neophilologica 2, no. XXIII (September 25, 2021): 217–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.31648/an.6666.
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The main aim of the present paper is to investigate and describe the nature of synaesthetic devices employed by Vladimir Nabokov evident in his letters to his wife – Vera Slonim. The analysis of the language and style of the matrimonial intimate correspondence, written for one reader only, is expected to provide evidence allowing one to establish whether the numerous variants of perceptual synaesthesia employed by Nabokov in all his literary texts reflect his genuine synaesthetic experiences or whether such can only serve as examples of the writer’s passion for creating a kind of perceptual play on words and puzzles.
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Luke, David, Devin Terhune, and Ross Friday. "Psychedelic synaesthesia: Evidence for a serotonergic role in synaesthesia." Seeing and Perceiving 25 (2012): 74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187847612x646956.
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The neurobiology of synaesthesia is receiving growing attention in the search for insights into consciousness, such as the binding problem. One way of decoding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon is to investigate the induction of synaesthesia via neurochemical agents, as commonly occurs with psychedelic substances. How synaesthesia is affected by drugs can also help inform us of the neural mechanisms underlying this condition. To address these questions we surveyed a sample of recreational drug users regarding the prevalence, type and frequency of synaesthesia under the influence of psychedelics and other psychoactive substances. The results indicate that synaesthesia is frequently experienced following the consumption of serotonergic agonists such as LSD and psilocybin and that these same drugs appear to augment synaesthesia in congenital synaesthetes. These results implicate the serotonergic system in the experience of synaesthesia.
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Hughes, James E. A., Julia Simner, Simon Baron-Cohen, Darold A. Treffert, and Jamie Ward. "Is Synaesthesia More Prevalent in Autism Spectrum Conditions? Only Where There Is Prodigious Talent." Multisensory Research 30, no. 3-5 (2017): 391–408. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134808-00002558.
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Savant syndrome is a condition where prodigious talent co-occurs with developmental difficulties such as autism spectrum conditions (ASC). To better understand savant skills, we previously proposed a link with synaesthesia: that savant syndrome may arise in ASC individuals who also happen to have synaesthesia. A second, unrelated claim is that people with autism may have higher rates of synaesthesia. Here we ask whether synaesthesia is indeed found more often in autism per se, or only in cases where autism co-occurs with savant skills. People with autism in previous studies when tested for synaesthesia were not differentiated into those with and without savant abilities. Here we tested three groups: people with autism who also have savant skills (), people with autism without savant skills (), and controls without autism (). We used a validated test to diagnose grapheme–colour synaesthesia. Results show a significantly higher prevalence of synaesthesia in people with ASC, but only those who also have savant skills. This suggests that synaesthesia in autism is linked to those with savant abilities rather than autism per se. We discuss the role of synaesthesia in the development of prodigious talent.
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Scheubeck, Stephanie. "Colours on the surface of my body in motion: The relationship between synaesthesia and dance improvisation." Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 11, no. 1 (July 1, 2019): 25–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jdsp.11.1.25_1.
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In synaesthesia, the stimulation of one sense or cognitive concept simultaneously and involuntarily produces a sensation in a second sense or cognitive experience. while synaesthesia has been investigated from neuroscience and psychology to social sciences and the arts, the relationship between synaesthesia and dance is largely un-researched. This article provides insight into my practice-led research project on the relationship between synaesthesia and dance improvisation, informed by somatic practice. It demonstrates the interrelation of synaesthesia and dance improvisation when performed by a synaesthete, and discusses the role of attention in this context as well as explorations of the relationship between synaesthesia, somatic practice and dance improvisation by synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes. In conclusion it is suggested that research into synaesthesia through dance and somatic practice can contribute to an integral understanding of this highly quantitatively investigated phenomenon.
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Iliukhina, Nadezhda A., and Ol’ga V. Chausova. "Semantic Potential of Tactile Metaphors (Based on Words Naming the Property of Softness)." Vestnik of Northern (Arctic) Federal University. Series Humanitarian and Social Sciences, no. 6 (December 20, 2021): 64–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.37482/2687-1505-v143.
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This article describes the results of the study on the psychophysiological phenomenon of synaesthesia projected onto language and speech. Synaesthesia is considered on the basis of words with the root myagk- (myagky, myagko, myagkost’, smyagchit’), which in their original meaning name the tactile sensation of softness. The paper aimed to identify the potential of this vocabulary and the sensory impression behind it as a means of conceptualizing knowledge about the world as well as to study the mechanism for the development of metaphorical, primarily synaesthetic, semantics. It is important to assess the sequence of expression of synaesthetic semantics and meanings that go beyond synaesthetic meanings, as well as to study whether vocabulary with the original semantics of softness can figuratively conceptualize knowledge. The research revealed a universal ability of this kind of vocabulary to conceptualize all types of sensory impressions (visual, auditory, olfactory and gustatory) when used metaphorically. In addition to conveying a multimodal perception of the world, these words can express new sensory sensations, unusual for the speaker, for which there are no special names in the language. Along with the synaesthetic semantics itself, vocabulary with the meaning of softness is able to reflect the psychological impressions of comfort, pleasure and enjoyment, as well as the psychological characteristics of a person and the psychological aspect of interpersonal interaction, including speech. The next stage of abstraction of the tactile impression is the development on its basis of quantitative semantics, i.e. the meaning of low intensity of the manifestation of an attribute or an action in their psychological perception. The results obtained can be used to identify the mechanism for conceptualizing sensory impressions and forming synaesthetic metaphors, as well as applied in the practice of lexicographic description of cognitive metaphors.
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Hao, Ada Xiaoyu. "Make this tango viral: Touching toward the untouchable in tele-synaesthesia performance." Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8, no. 2 (November 1, 2021): 237–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00046_1.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has created an uncanny rift between tact and touch as it expands the virtual towards its potential. Layer upon layer of new information has been repeatedly revising and reformulating our sense of touch. The unconditional freedom of touch needs to be rendered accountable in this rift of time and space. The act of touching entails individual acknowledging the risk of reaching towards the unknown or the known. Tracing with a tactile sense of touch is to be tactful about how, where and what can such act of touching could reach, especially in the context of communicative technology. This article focuses on the possibility of virtual sensibility by challenging ways to feel touched beyond the nostalgic narratives that attempt to indict communicative technology with the loss of touch. To replenish and reinstate touch through tele-synaesthesia performance, I ask: how to elongate our somatosensensation and echo the embodied experience of touching through virtual connectivity? Tele-synaesthesia performance joints telematic and synaesthetic experience together to embody the incorporeality of touch through virtual connectivity. It embodies the injunction of physical contact and challenges what can and cannot be touched by suturing one sensuous modality to another. Inspired by Paul Sermon’s artistic production of Telematic Quarantine (2020) and Pandemic Encounters (2020), that tele-presents the stories of self (isolation), I have created The Best Facial (2021): a series of one-to-one participatory tele-synaesthesia performances, where I became a virtual aesthetician and performed ‘virtual facial care’ on Zoom amid the second wave of the pandemic in the United Kingdom. In this article, I will discuss how tele-synaesthesia performance could trigger tactile experiences in the participants in reference to Michel Foucault’s concept Heterotopia (1986) that allegorically address the incompatible physical places in the society. I discuss how to elicit an affective sensory response from non-tactile senses through virtual touch, as stated by Naomi Bennett’s ‘Telematic connections: sensing, feeling, being in space together’ (2020). I refer to Legacy Russell’s discussion on glitch (2020) to analyse the possible future of tele-synaesthesia performance and its potential for expanding virtual connectivity with an ethical touch of a non-performative refusal of the present.
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Rothen, Nicolas, Andrea-Laura Wantz, and Beat Meier. "Training Synaesthesia." Perception 40, no. 10 (January 2011): 1248–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/p6984.
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Chiew, Florence. "Originary Synaesthesia." Australian Feminist Studies 31, no. 89 (July 2, 2016): 263–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2016.1254028.
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Wager, Adam. "Synaesthesia misrepresented." Philosophical Psychology 14, no. 3 (September 2001): 347–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515080120072659.
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Simner, Julia. "Defining synaesthesia." British Journal of Psychology 103, no. 1 (March 11, 2011): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712610x528305.
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Cohen Kadosh, Roi, and Devin B. Terhune. "Redefining synaesthesia?" British Journal of Psychology 103, no. 1 (February 24, 2011): 20–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2010.02003.x.
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MATTINGLEY, J., J. PAYNE, and A. RICH. "Attentional Load Attenuates Synaesthetic Priming Effects in Grapheme-Colour Synaesthesia." Cortex 42, no. 2 (2006): 213–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70346-0.
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Deroy, Ophelia, and Charles Spence. "Are we all born synaesthetic? Examining the neonatal synaesthesia hypothesis." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 37, no. 7 (August 2013): 1240–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2013.04.001.
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Glasser, Solange. "Perceiving Music Through the Lens of Synaesthesia and Absolute Pitch." Perception 50, no. 8 (July 31, 2021): 690–708. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03010066211034439.
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Synaesthesia and absolute pitch (AP) are two rare conditions that occur more frequently within populations of artistic professionals. Current thinking surrounding synaesthesia and AP and their relationship to music perception form the focus of this article. Given that synaesthesia has rarely been discussed in the music literature, the article surveys and consolidates general neurobiological, psychological, and behavioural evidence to summarise what is currently known on this topic, in order to link this back to the conditions that most relate to music. In contrast, research on AP is now well established in the music literature, but the important gap of linking AP to other conditions such as synaesthesia has yet to be fully explored. This article investigates the potential relationship between synaesthesia and AP for musicians who possess both conditions by systematically comparing the definitions, classifications, prevalence, diagnoses, and impacts on music perception of synaesthesia and AP and provides insights into the varying states of the literature and knowledge of both conditions. In so doing, this article aims to facilitate a greater understanding of music and auditory forms of synaesthesia and their interaction with AP and encourage increased research effort on this important topic.
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Ward, Jamie, Clare Jonas, Zoltan Dienes, and Anil Seth. "Grapheme-colour synaesthesia improves detection of embedded shapes, but without pre-attentive ‘pop-out’ of synaesthetic colour." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 277, no. 1684 (December 9, 2009): 1021–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.1765.
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For people with synaesthesia letters and numbers may evoke experiences of colour. It has been previously demonstrated that these synaesthetes may be better at detecting a triangle made of 2s among a background of 5s if they perceive 5 and 2 as having different synaesthetic colours. However, other studies using this task (or tasks based on the same principle) have failed to replicate the effect or have suggested alternative explanations of the effect. In this study, we repeat the original study on a larger group of synaesthetes ( n = 36) and include, for the first time, an assessment of their self-reported colour experiences. We show that synaesthetes do have a general advantage over controls on this task. However, many synaesthetes report no colour experiences at all during the task. Synaesthetes who do report colour typically experience around one third of the graphemes in the display as coloured. This is more consistent with theories of synaesthesia in which spatial attention needs to be deployed to graphemes for conscious colour experiences to emerge than the interpretation based on ‘pop-out’.
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Rothen, Nicolas, Beat Meier, and Jamie Ward. "Enhanced memory ability: Insights from synaesthesia." Seeing and Perceiving 25 (2012): 220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187847612x648468.
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People with synaesthesia show an enhanced memory relative to demographically matched controls. The most obvious explanation for this is that the ‘extra’ perceptual experiences lead to richer encoding and retrieval opportunities of material that induces synaesthesia (typically verbal material). Although there is some evidence for this, it is unlikely to be the whole explanation. For instance, not all material that triggers synaesthesia is better remembered (e.g., digit span) and some material that does not trigger synaesthesia is better remembered. In fact, they tend to have better visual memory than verbal memory. We suggest that enhanced memory in synaesthesia is linked to wider changes in cognitive systems at the interface of perception and memory and link this to recent findings in the neuroscience of memory.