title: Synesthetic colors for Japanese late acquired graphemes.
abstract: Determinants of synesthetic color choice for the Japanese logographic script, Kanji, were studied. The study investigated how synesthetic colors for Kanji characters, which are usually acquired later in life than other types of graphemes in Japanese language (phonetic characters called Hiragana and Katakana, and Arabic digits), are influenced by linguistic properties such as phonology, orthography, and meaning. Of central interest was a hypothesized generalization process from synesthetic colors for graphemes, learned prior to acquisition of Kanji, to Kanji characters learned later. Results revealed that color choices for Kanji characters depend on meaning and phonological information. Some results suggested that colors are generalized from Hiragana characters and Arabic digits to Kanji characters via phonology and meaning, respectively. Little influence of orthographic information was observed. The findings and approach of this study contributes to a clarification of the mechanism underlying grapheme-color synesthesia, especially in terms of its relationship to normal language processing.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University, 5322 Endo, Fujisawa-shi, Kanagawa 252-0882, Japan. asano@sfc.keio.ac.jp
authors.forename: Michiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Asano
authors.forename: Kazuhiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yokosawa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003116:Color; D003118:Color Perception; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007802:Language; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010700:Phonetics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D013997:Time Factors