title: Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences.
abstract: Synesthesia is a condition where presentation of one perceptual class consistently evokes additional experiences in different perceptual categories. Synesthesia is widely considered a congenital condition, although an alternative view is that it is underpinned by repeated exposure to combined perceptual features at key developmental stages. Here we explore the potential for repeated associative learning to shape and engender synesthetic experiences. Non-synesthetic adult participants engaged in an extensive training regime that involved adaptive memory and reading tasks, designed to reinforce 13 specific letter-color associations. Following training, subjects exhibited a range of standard behavioral and physiological markers for grapheme-color synesthesia; crucially, most also described perceiving color experiences for achromatic letters, inside and outside the lab, where such experiences are usually considered the hallmark of genuine synesthetes. Collectively our results are consistent with developmental accounts of synesthesia and illuminate a previously unsuspected potential for new learning to shape perceptual experience, even in adulthood.
authors.affiliation: 1] Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK [2] Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bor
authors.affiliation: 1] Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK [2] Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ UK.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rothen
authors.affiliation: 1] Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK [2] Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Schwartzman
authors.affiliation: Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Clayton
authors.affiliation: 1] Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK [2] Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QJ, UK.
authors.forename: Anil K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Seth
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D003116:Color; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D059032:Learning Curve; D008297:Male; D057567:Memory, Long-Term / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D011932:Reading; D000080311:Synesthesia; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult