TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring the benefit of synaesthetic colours

T2 - testing for "pop-out" in individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia

AU - Rich, Anina N

AU - Karstoft, Karen-Inge

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, letters, numbers, and words elicit involuntary colour experiences. Recently, there has been much emphasis on individual differences and possible subcategories of synaesthetes with different underlying mechanisms. In particular, there are claims that for some, synaesthesia occurs prior to attention and awareness of the inducing stimulus. We first characterized our sample using two versions of the "Synaesthetic Congruency Task" to distinguish "projector" and "associator" synaesthetes who may differ in the extent to which their synaesthesia depends on attention and awareness. We then used a novel modification of the "Embedded Figures Task" that included a set-size manipulation to look for evidence of preattentive "pop-out" from synaesthetic colours, at both a group and an individual level. We replicate an advantage for synaesthetes over nonsynaesthetic controls on the Embedded Figures Task in accuracy, but find no support for pop-out of synaesthetic colours. We conclude that grapheme-colour synaesthetes are fundamentally similar in their visual processing to the general population, with the source of their unusual conscious colour experiences occurring late in the cognitive hierarchy.

AB - In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, letters, numbers, and words elicit involuntary colour experiences. Recently, there has been much emphasis on individual differences and possible subcategories of synaesthetes with different underlying mechanisms. In particular, there are claims that for some, synaesthesia occurs prior to attention and awareness of the inducing stimulus. We first characterized our sample using two versions of the "Synaesthetic Congruency Task" to distinguish "projector" and "associator" synaesthetes who may differ in the extent to which their synaesthesia depends on attention and awareness. We then used a novel modification of the "Embedded Figures Task" that included a set-size manipulation to look for evidence of preattentive "pop-out" from synaesthetic colours, at both a group and an individual level. We replicate an advantage for synaesthetes over nonsynaesthetic controls on the Embedded Figures Task in accuracy, but find no support for pop-out of synaesthetic colours. We conclude that grapheme-colour synaesthetes are fundamentally similar in their visual processing to the general population, with the source of their unusual conscious colour experiences occurring late in the cognitive hierarchy.

KW - Adult

KW - Association

KW - Attention

KW - Color Perception

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Male

KW - Middle Aged

KW - Pattern Recognition, Visual

KW - Perceptual Disorders

KW - Photic Stimulation

KW - Reaction Time

KW - Synesthesia

U2 - 10.1080/02643294.2013.805686

DO - 10.1080/02643294.2013.805686

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 23768150

VL - 30

SP - 110

EP - 125

JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology

JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology

SN - 0264-3294

IS - 2

ER -