title: Handedness and calendar orientations in time-space synaesthesia.
abstract: In one common variant of time-space synaesthesia, individuals report the consistent experience of months bound to a spatial arrangement, commonly described as a circle extending outside of the body. Whereas the layout of these calendars has previously been thought to be relatively random and to differ greatly between synaesthetes, Study 1 provides the first evidence suggesting one critical aspect of these calendars is mediated by handedness: clockwise versus counter-clockwise orientation. A study of 34 time-space synaesthetes revealed a strong association between handedness and the orientation of circular calendars. That is, left-handed time-space synaesthetes tended to report counter-clockwise arrangements and right-handed synaesthetes clockwise. Study 2 tested whether a similar bias was present in non-synaesthetes whose task was to memorize and recall the spatial configuration of a clockwise and counter-clockwise calendar. Non-synaesthetes' relative performance on these two sorts of calendars was significantly correlated with their handedness scores in a pattern similar to synaesthetes. Specifically, left-handed controls performed better on counter-clockwise calendars compared to clockwise, and right-handed controls on clockwise over counter-clockwise. We suggest that the implicit biases seen in controls are mediated by similar mechanisms as in synaesthesia, highlighting the graded nature of synaesthetic associations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, California 92093-0109, USA. dbrang@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Brang
authors.forename: Ursina
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Teuscher
authors.forename: Luke E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Vilayanur S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
authors.forename: Seana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Coulson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001244:Association; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult