Training synaesthesia.
Synaesthetic inducers such as graphemes are typically cultural artifacts. Thus, a learning component seems evident in synaesthesia (Simner et al, 2009 Brain 132 57-64). Normally, synaesthetes report to have their experiences since they can remember. Nevertheless, a recent training study suggests that synaesthesia can be mimicked in non-synaesthetes. To date, the role of learning during the development of synaesthesia is still debated. It is not clear whether synaesthesia can be learned or trained at all. To address this question, we compared a non-adaptive and an adaptive training for their effectiveness. We assessed their impact on two types of priming tasks, before and after the training. We found stronger priming in the adaptive training group suggesting that adaptive training is more efficient to mimic synaesthesia.
Department of Psychology and Center for Cognition, Learning, and Memory, University of Bern, Muesmattstrasse 45, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland. nicolas.rothen@gmail.com
Nicolas
N
Rothen
Andrea-Laura
AL
Wantz
Beat
B
Meier
D001244:Association; D003118:Color Perception; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011932:Reading; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult