title: The influence of synesthesia on eye movements: no synesthetic pop-out in an oculomotor target selection task.
abstract: Recent research on grapheme-colour synesthesia has focused on whether visual attention is necessary to induce a synesthetic percept. The current study investigated the influence of synesthesia on overt visual attention during an oculomotor target selection task. Chromatic and achromatic stimuli were presented with one target among distractors (e.g. a '2' (target) among multiple '5's (distractors)). Participants executed an eye movement to the target. Synesthetes and controls showed a comparable target selection performance across conditions and a 'pop-out effect' was only seen in the chromatic condition. As a pop-out effect was absent for the synesthetes in the achromatic condition, a synesthetic element appears not to elicit a synesthetic colour, even when it is the target. The synesthetic percepts are not pre-attentively available to distinguish the synesthetic target from synesthetic distractors when elements are presented in the periphery. Synesthesia appears to require full recognition to bind form and colour.
authors.affiliation: Utrecht University, Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. t.c.w.nijboer@uu.nl
authors.forename: Tanja C W
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Nijboer
authors.forename: Gabriela
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Satris
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Van der Stigchel
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult