Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences

Scientific Reports

Volumn 4, Issue , 2014, Pages

  Bor, Daniel ^a   Rothen, Nicolas ^a   Schwartzman, David J ^a   Clayton, Stephanie ^a   Seth, Anil K ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; COLOR; FEMALE; HUMAN; LEARNING; LEARNING CURVE; LONG TERM MEMORY; MALE; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; PATTERN RECOGNITION; PERCEPTION DISORDER; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGY; READING; TASK PERFORMANCE; YOUNG ADULT;

ADOLESCENT; ASSOCIATION LEARNING; COLOR; FEMALE; HUMANS; LEARNING CURVE; MALE; MEMORY, LONG-TERM; PATTERN RECOGNITION, VISUAL; PERCEPTUAL DISORDERS; READING; TASK PERFORMANCE AND ANALYSIS; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 84923333743     PISSN: None     EISSN: 20452322     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1038/srep07089     Document Type: Article

References (57)

1. Simner, J. et al. Synaesthesia: The prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. Perception 35, 1024-1033 (2006).
2. Maurer, D.&Mondloch, C. J. The infant as synesthete. Attention and Performance XXI, 449-471 (2006).
3. Wagner, K. & Dobkins, K. R. Synaesthetic Associations Decrease During Infancy. Psychol Sci 22, 1067-1072 (2011).
4. Ward, J. Synesthesia. Annu Rev of Psychol 64, 49-75 (2013).
5. Asher, J. E. et al. A whole-genome scan and fine-mapping linkage study of auditory-visual synesthesia reveals evidence of linkage to chromosomes 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12. A Am J Hum Genetics 84, 279-285 (2009).
6. Tomson, S. N. et al. The genetics of colored sequence synesthesia: Suggestive evidence of linkage to 16q and genetic heterogeneity for the condition. Behav Brain Res 223, 48-52 (2011).
7. Ward, J. & Simner, J. Is synaesthesia an X-linked dominant trait with lethality in males? Perception 34, 611-623 (2005).
8. Jewanski, J., Simner, J., Day, S. A. & Ward, J. The development of a scientific understanding of synesthesia from early case studies (1849-1873). J History Neurosci 20, 284-305 (2011).
9. Smilek, D., Dixon, M. J. & Merikle, P. M. Synaesthesia: Discordant male monozygotic twins. Neurocase 11, 363-370 (2005).
10. Smilek, D. et al. Synaesthesia: A case study of discordant monozygotic twins. Neurocase 8, 338-342 (2002).
11. Simner, J., Harrold, J., Creed, H., Monro, L. & Foulkes, L. Early detection of markers for synaesthesia in childhood populations. Brain 132, 57-64 (2009).
12. Simner, J. & Bain, A. E. A longitudinal study of grapheme-colour synaesthesia in childhood: 6/7 years to 10/11 years. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7 (2013).
13. Marks, L. E. & Odgaard, E. C. Developmental Constraints on Theories of Synesthesia, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005).
14. Rothen, N. et al. Psychophysiological evidence for the genuineness of swimmingstyle colour synaesthesia. Conscious. Cogn. 22, 35-46 (2013).
15. Simner, J. et al. Non-random associations of graphemes to colours in synaesthetic and non-synaesthetic populations. Cogn. Neuropsychol. 22, 1069-1085 (2005).
16. Rich, A. N., Bradshaw, J. L. & Mattingley, J. B. A systematic, large-scale study of synaesthesia: Implications for the role of early experience in lexical-colour associations. Cognition 98, 53-84 (2005).
17. Witthoft, N. & Winawer, J. Learning, memory, and synesthesia. Psychol. Sci. 24, 258-265 (2013).
18. Elias, L. J., Saucier, D. M., Hardie, C. & Sarty, G. E. Dissociating semantic and perceptual components of synaesthesia: Behavioural and functional neuroanatomical investigations. Brain Res Cogn Brain Res 16, 232-237 (2003).
19. Brang, D., Kanai, S., Ramachandran, V. S. & Coulson, S. Contextual priming in grapheme-color synesthetes and yoked controls: 400 msec in the life of a synesthete. J Cogn Neurosci 23, 1681-1696 (2011).
20. Niccolai, V., Wascher, E. & Stoerig, P. Distinct neural processes in graphemecolour synaesthetes and semantic controls. Eur J Neurosci 36, 3593-3601 (2012).
21. Cohen Kadosh, R. et al.When blue is larger than red: Colors influence numerical cognition in synesthesia. J Cogn Neurosci 17, 1766-1773 (2005).
22. Colizoli, O., Murre, J. M. & Rouw, R. Pseudo-synesthesia through reading books with colored letters. PloS One 7, e39799 (2012).
23. Howells, T. H. The experimental development of color-tone synesthesia. J Exp Psychol 34, 87-103 (1944).
24. Kelly, E. L. An experimental attempt to produce artificial chromaesthesia by the technique of the conditioned response. J Exp Psychol 17, 315-341 (1934).
25. Kusnir, F. & Thut, G. Formation of automatic letter-colour associations in nonsynaesthetes through likelihood manipulation of letter-colour pairings. Neuropsychologia 50, 3641-3652 (2012).
26. MacLeod, C. M. & Dunbar, K. Training and Stroop-like interference: Evidence for a continuum of automaticity. J Exp Psychol: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 14, 126-135 (1988).
27. Meier, B. & Rothen, N. Training grapheme-colour associations produces a synaesthetic Stroop effect, but not a conditioned synaesthetic response. Neuropsychologia 47, 1208-1211 (2009).
28. Rothen, N., Wantz, A. L. & Meier, B. Training synaesthesia. Perception 40, 1248-1250 (2011).
29. Rothen, N. & Meier, B. Acquiring synaesthesia: Insights from training studies. Front Hum Neurosci 8, 109 (2014).
30. Deroy, O. & Spence, C. Training, hypnosis, and drugs: Artificial synaesthesia, or artificial paradises? Front Psychol 4, 660 (2013).
31. Marks, D. F. Visual imagery differences in the recall of pictures. Brit J Psychol 64, 17-24 (1973).
32. Reisberg, D., Pearson, D. G. & Kosslyn, S. M. Intuitions and introspections about imagery: The role of imagery experience in shaping an investigator's theoretical views. Applied Cog Psychol 17, 147-160 (2003).
33. Barnett, K. J. & Newell, F. N. Synaesthesia is associated with enhanced, self-rated visual imagery. Conscious Cogn 17, 1032-1039 (2008).
34. Meier, B. & Rothen, N. Grapheme-color synaesthesia is associated with a distinct cognitive style. Front Psychol 4, 632 (2013).
35. Ward, J. & Sagiv, N. Synaesthesia for finger counting and dice patterns: A case of higher synaesthesia? Neurocase 13, 86-93 (2007).
36. Rothen, N., Tsakanikos, E., Meier, B. & Ward, J. Coloured Letters and Numbers (CLaN): A reliable factor-analysis based synaesthesia questionnaire. Conscious. Cogn. 22, 1047-1060 (2013).
37. Eagleman, D. M., Kagan, A. D., Nelson, S. S., Sagaram, D. & Sarma, A. K. A standardized test battery for the study of synesthesia. J Neurosci Methods 159, 139-145 (2007).
38. Rothen, N., Seth, A. K.,Witzel, C. &Ward, J. Diagnosing synaesthesia with online colour pickers: Maximising sensitivity and specificity. J Neurosci Methods 215, 156-160 (2013).
39. Meier, B. & Rothen, N. When conditioned responses fire back'': Bidirectional cross-activation creates learning opportunities in synesthesia. Neuroscience 147, 569-572 (2007).
40. Rothen, N., Nyffeler, T., von Wartburg, R., Muri, R. & Meier, B. Parieto-occipital suppression eliminates implicit bidirectionality in grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Neuropsychologia 48 (2010).
41. Benedek, M. & Kaernbach, C. Decomposition of skin conductance data by means of nonnegative deconvolution. Psychophysiology 47, 647-658 (2010).
42. Simner, J. & Holenstein, E. Ordinal linguistic personification as a variant of synesthesia. J Cogn Neurosci 19, 694-703 (2007).
43. Dixon, M. J., Smilek, D. & Merikle, P. M. Not all synaesthetes are created equal: Projector versus associator synaesthetes. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 4, 335-343 (2004).
44. Ward, J., Li, R., Salih, S. & Sagiv, N. Varieties of grapheme-colour synaesthesia: A new theory of phenomenological and behavioural differences. Conscious. Cogn. 16, 913-931 (2007).
45. Gobet, F. et al. Chunking mechanisms in human learning. Trends Cog Sci 5, 236-243 (2001).
46. Gobet, F. Chunking models of expertise: Implications for education. Applied Cog Psychol 19, 183-204 (2005).
47. Bor, D., Cumming, N., Scott, C. E. & Owen, A. M. Prefrontal cortical involvement in verbal encoding strategies. Eur J Neurosci 19, 3365-3370 (2004).
48. Bor, D., Duncan, J., Lee, A. C., Parr, A. & Owen, A. M. Frontal lobe involvement in spatial span: Converging studies of normal and impaired function. Neuropsychologia 44, 229-237 (2006).
49. Bor, D. & Owen, A. M. A common prefrontal-parietal network for mnemonic and mathematical recoding strategies within working memory. Cereb Cortex 17, 778-786 (2007).
50. Terhune, D. B., Wudarczyk, O. A., Kochuparampil, P. & Kadosh, R. C. Enhanced dimension-specific visual working memory in grapheme-color synesthesia. Cognition 129, 123-137 (2013).
51. Rothen, N. & Meier, B. Grapheme-colour synaesthesia yields an ordinary rather than extraordinary memory advantage: Evidence from a group study. Memory 18, 258-264 (2010).
52. Rothen, N., Meier, B. & Ward, J. Enhanced memory ability: Insights from synaesthesia. Neurosci biobehavioral Rev 36, 1952-1963 (2012).
53. Baron-Cohen, S. et al. Savant memory in a man with colour form-number synaesthesia and Asperger syndrome. J Consciousness Studies 14, 237-251 (2007).
54. Bor, D., Billington, J. & Baron-Cohen, S. Savant memory for digits in a case of synaesthesia and Asperger syndrome is related to hyperactivity in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Neurocase 13, 311-319 (2007).
55. Luria, A. R. The Mind of a Mnemonist. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1966).
56. Owen, A. M. et al. Putting brain training to the test. Nature 465, 775-778 (2010).
57. Winawer, J. et al. Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 104, 7780-7785 (2007).