Annual General Meeting
and Conference Saturday 22th - Sunday
23th, April 2006
Provisional Programme
SATURDAY 22ND APRIL 2006
9.25 Welcome
Athene Witherby, President of the UK Synaesthesia Association
9:30 What’s right and what’s wrong about the projector-associator distinction?
Jamie Ward, Noam Sagiv, and Ryan Li
10:00 Grapheme personification: A profile
Noam Sagiv, Olufemi Olu-Lafe, Maina Amin, and Jamie Ward
10:30 Synaesthesia: What’s in a word?
Simon O’Sullivan
11:00 BREAK (tea/coffee in ROOM 308)
11:30 Mental rotation and alphanumeric colour synaesthesia
Mary Jane Spiller, Ashok S Jansari and Matthew Jones Chester
12:00 The impact of number-shape synesthesia in a savant’s memory
Edward M. Hubbard, Shai Azoulai, and V.S. Ramachandran
12:30 Synaesthesia and creativity
Catherine Mulvenna
13:00 LUNCH (served in ROOM 313)
14:00 Panel Discussion: “Me and My Synaesthesia”
James Wannerton, Anne Wight, and others to be confirmed
15:00 Sensual category fluency in color-digit synesthesia
Christine Mohr and Peter Brugger
15:30 BREAK (tea/coffee in ROOM 308)
16:00 Synaesthesia and Personality
Markus Zedler
16:30 The relevance of synaesthesia to the problem of consciousness
Hans Dooremalen
17:00 Keynote Speech on “”
Dr Dominic ffytche, King’s College, London
18:00 DRINKS (open to all; ROOM 308)
19:30 DINNER (for those who pre-booked; Navarros, Charlotte Street)
SUNDAY 23RD APRIL 2006
10:00 Synaesthesia and principles of cortical connectivity
Kevin J. Mitchell, Gary Bargary, Kylie J. Barnett and Fiona N. Newell
10:30 The genetics of synesthesia: Linking genes to perception
David Eagleman, Arielle Kagan, Karthik Sarma, and Steffie Nelson
11:00 Ongoing results of a whole-genome screen for susceptibility genes linked to synaesthesia
Julian Asher, J.A. Lamb, Simon Baron-Cohen, and Anthony Monaco
11:30 BREAK (tea/coffee in ROOM 308)
12:00 Animating the ‘visual music’ of synaesthetes
Samantha Moore
12:30 Mind, the gap: Synaesthesia and contemporary live art practice
Amanda Steggell
13:00 LUNCH (served in ROOM 313)
14:00 The taste of words to come: Synaesthetic sensation is induced in tip-of-tongue states.
Julia Simner and Jamie Ward
14:30 Word frequency effect for word colour in German compounds
Andreas Kubitza
15:00 Semantic features associated with the shape and color of a typeface are shown to impact automatically on word reading
Peter Walker
15:30 END OF MEETING
ABSTRACTS
What’s right and what’s wrong about the projector-associator distinction?
Jamie Ward, Noam Sagiv, and Ryan Li
University College London
It has been suggested that synaesthetes experiencing colours when reading can be divided into at least two sub-types depending on whether the synaesthetic colours appear to lie on the surface of the page (projectors) or internally in the “minds eye” (associators). Two further claims about this distinction have been put forward: (1) that projector synaesthesia may arise from earlier visual processing, possibly without recruiting attention and (2) that associator synaesthesia arises from associations with the meaning of the stimulus and/or its sequential nature. In our research we provide further evidence that endorses the validity of the projector-associator distinction. However, we find little support for the further claims that have been made. In particular, projector and associator synaesthetes cannot be reliably distinguished by their performance on certain ‘low-level’ tasks (e.g. McCollough effect, visual crowding) and nor do additional traits (e.g. number forms, special status for days/months) map on to this dimension. In fact, it is possible to find projector synaesthetes who show exactly those traits that are predicted to belong to associator synaesthetes. For example, one projector synaesthete that we studied had the same colours for numerals, dice patterns and finger counting (i.e. his colours are conceptually determined). We suggest that the projector-asociator distinction reflects differences in the spatial reference frame that is evoked during grapheme-colour binding rather than differences in attention v. pre-attention or differences in conceptual v. perceptual processing.
Grapheme Personification: A Profile
Noam Sagiv, Olufemi Olu-Lafe, Maina Amin, and Jamie Ward
University of Brunel and University College London
In ‘The Child’s Conception of the World’, Jean Piaget (1929) maintains that children exhibit a form of animism, i.e., they attribute consciousness to inanimate objects. The idea has been challenged since. In particular, it was unclear that animistic description necessarily suggests genuine animistic thought (rather than immature language skills). Substantial efforts are now devoted to studying children’s understanding of other people’s feelings and intentions, but the fantasy world in which inner life is attributed to objects virtually ignored. While animistic ideas seem to have an appeal to many of us (e.g., they are utilized in poetry, children’s stories, and advertisement) and may be normative in some cultures, we normally treat such ideas with suspicion. It seems, however, that some healthy, non-delusional adults do tend to attribute life to non-living things. In the present study we looked at a unique group of synaesthetes, attributing not only colour to graphemes, but also gender and/or personality. Some of the synaesthetes also extend this animistic thought to inanimate objects. We investigated the phenomenology of grapheme personification and its behavioural consequences using Stroop-like paradigms. In addition, we are now examining potential physiological markers. We will discuss some differences and similarities to colour synaesthesia and suggest that the phenomenon could provide some insights into normal cognition and brain function.
Synaesthesia: what's in a word?
Simon O'Sullivan
Independent Researcher
Etymological dictionaries derive the term synaesthesia from its use in 1864 by the French physiologist Alfred Vulpian and its Greek root sun-aisthesis, "sensing together". In this presentation I first trace the history of the term and the concept from origins in Aristotle and Greek medicine through psychology in the late 1880s and then to literature, music and the visual arts in the twentieth century. I then show how evolution in understanding the phenomena of coloured hearing and other synaesthesias changed the terminology used to describe and explain them from in the later nineteenth century. I conclude by suggesting how the language of psychology and explanatory theories then in turn influenced views of literary synaesthesia and synaesthetic art from the 1920s to the present day.
Sensual category fluency in color-digit synesthesia
Christine Mohr1, Peter Brugger2
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
2Department of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
To assess and compare the quantitative and qualitative aspects of verbal associations to different sense modalities in synaesthesia, we conducted a verbal category fluency task. During three minutes, digit-color synaesthetes (n=20) and matched control participants (n=20) named as many things as they could think of which they could either see, smell, or hear in random order. Subsequently, participants indicated whether the individual items either belonged to the category vision, smell, or audition. Finally, they indicated the emotionality of each item on a 7-point Likert scale. While the overall number of items named was comparable for the synaesthetes and controls, the former allotted more items to the visual category than did the latter. Independent of group membership, emotionality was found to be lowest for auditory items, with visual and olfactory items yielding a comparably high emotionality rating. These findings would indicate that digit-color synaesthetes have a specific bias for the visual modality in sensual category fluency, without attributing, however, a particular emotionality to these visual items.
Mental Rotation and Alphanumeric Colour Synaesthesia
Mary Jane Spiller, Ashok S Jansari and Matthew Jones Chester
University of East London, School of Psychology
The impact of synaesthesia on general cognitive function, such as memory, has been explored by a few key studies (Mills et al, 2005). The current study (in progress) aims to compare the visual mental imagery skills of a group of alphanumeric colour synaesthetes (n=5) to matched non-synaesthetic controls, using a mental rotation task. Additionally, it explores the effect of the visual colour on mental rotation speed (congruent or achromatic), and the possible interaction effect of angle of rotation and colour effect. Synaesthetes and matched controls are shown a series of adjacent letter pairs, the letters being at 2 different angles of rotation, and either identical or mirrored versions. Participants are shown one pair at a time and asked to indicate whether the stimuli in the pair were ‘same’ or ‘mirrored’. It is expected that the synaesthetes will be significantly quicker at making an accurate decision than the non-synaesthetes. If the visual colour of the letters has an effect on mental rotation then it is expected that the congruently coloured condition will be faster than the achromatic condition, and that this colour effect might be stronger as the angle of rotation required increases. The results and potential implications of this study are discussed in relation to the mental imagery and synaesthesia literature.
The Impact of Number-Shape Synesthesia in a Savant’s Memory
Edward M. Hubbard1,2, Shai Azoulai1, and V.S. Ramachandran1
1 Center for Brain and Cognition, UC San Diego La Jolla CA USA.
2 INSERM Unité 562, Orsay France.
Numerous studies have explored the cognitive, perceptual and neural bases of synesthesia. However, few of these studies have investigated the potential consequences of synesthesia for cognitive abilities. Anecdotal and single case-reports suggest a link between synesthesia and memory, including savant memory abilities (Luria, 1968). To explore this link, we investigated the role of synesthetic experience in memory and calculation skills in a calculation savant, “Arithmos”, who currently holds the European record for the most digits of pi memorized (22,515) and is able to perform numerous feats of mental calculation. He reports an unusual form of synesthesia, in which each number has an elaborate three-dimensional shape that incorporates size, color, texture, and sometimes movement or sound. We asked him to create clay models of his number-shapes, and found that he had high retest reliability after several days. Individual digits 0 - 9 have unique sizes, ranging from smallest (6) to largest (9). We therefore tested whether Arithmos' synesthesia contributes to his savant-like feats of memory by presenting him with arrays of 100 random numbers to memorize in each of three conditions: neutral, congruent, or incongruent. After a three minute study period, we immediately retested his memory. Arithmos performed well in both the neutral and congruent conditions (recalling more than 50 digits) and poorly in the discordant condition (recalling 20 digits). In two surprise retests 24 and 72 hours later, Arithmos perfectly recalled the digits he had recalled in the immediate test for the neutral and congruent conditions, but not for the incongruent condition. Unlike controls, he showed no memory decay in the neutral and congruent condition, but showed significant decay in the incongruent condition. These results further suggest a link between synesthesia and memory abilities, but future research will be necessary to determine how general this link is.
Synaesthesia and Creativity
Catherine Mulvenna
University College London
It has been claimed that synaesthetes display higher levels of creativity than non-synaesthetes but empirical evidence of this remains controversially unclear. In this study a large sample of undergraduate students (n=445) was screened for grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Four potential synaesthetes were identified and then formally classified with a surprise test of consistency over a 10 week retest period. Four non-synaesthetes were matched (age, gender, nationality, education-level, university subject studied) and formally classified with the same test. All participants carried out the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking and results were compared in a between groups design. Synaesthetes scored significantly higher than non-synaesthetes, supporting previous claims of a link between synaesthesia and creativity. These results are discussed in the context of current understanding of atypical cognition in synaesthetes, and methodological issues in the measurement of creativity and synaesthesia.
Mind, the gap. Synaesthesia and contemporary live art practice
Amanda Steggell
Norway
For several centuries artists have been inspired by the phenomenon of synaesthesia and the potential of experiencing a dimension where everything is brought together - where each sense exists so closely to another that it seems to become the other. With the advent of digital and communications technologies, digital devices that translate one media to another can now mimic synaesthesia. The most exposed practice regarding live art and synaesthesia today is the generation of dynamic visual imagery derived from the digitized properties of sound, and less focus is given to other sensory cross-wirings. Such practices often adhere to the pursuit of formal sensory correlations reminiscent of activities of the late 19th century - a far cry from the 1960's when experiments with psychedlic drugs induced temporal synaesthetic experiences, and the search was on for a radically new way of perceiving the world. This leads me to ask, has the nurturing of digital devices with synaesthetic capabilities opened the way for new forms of art, communication and perceptions of the world (as some advertising companies would have me believe)? If, according to neurologist Richard Cytowic, synaesthesia "is something that all of us have, but only reaches consciousness in a minority of people", can artworks that apply synaesthetic strategies awaken that consciousness in those of us who have lost our synaesthetic abilities along the way? Is it possible to evoke, even for a moment, an experience comparable to real synaesthesia, a gesamtkunstwerk of emotional impact and perceptual transcendence - without using psychedelic drugs? These are just some of the questions I am attempting to expose through my practice-based arts research project Mind, the gap. To address these questions I am constructing an instrument called The Emotion Organ, which, when played, will release a cacophony of sensory information. During my talk I will describe the process of constructing this instrument, the ideas that are generated from the process, and the pitfalls and paradoxes I encounter along the way.
Animating the ‘visual music’ of synaesthetes
Samantha Moore
Animated film maker & lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton (in collaboration with Dr Jamie Ward from UCL and the New London Orchestra)
A talk on the research generated by a project for the Wellcome Trust’s ‘sciart’ R&D fund, about synaesthesia and sound. The project is based in interviews with several sound to image synaesthetes. The research has involved animating their synaesthetic responses to musical notes, resulting in some beautiful, abstract and quite surprising outcomes! This project is an unusual combination of scientific research and artistic endeavour. This project aims to present to a wide audience a different perspective on the science of neuro-psychology, and encourages the barriers between disciplines and media to be broken down. The talk will include screenings of the animation done to date together with the musical scales used.
The Relevance of Synaesthesia to the Problem of Consciousness
Dr. Hans Dooremalen
University of Groningen (Department of Philosophy – Theoretical Philosophy) & University of Tilburg (Department of Philosophy – Philosophy of Science – Philosophy of Mind)
It is said that the hard problem of consciousness – how the physical determines the phenomenal – cannot be solved, since phenomenal consciousness cannot be analyzed functionally. In this paper I prove this claim to be wrong, by presenting empirical data about synaesthesia; the condition in which people have extra qualia. From these data it follows that qualia are causally efficacious internal states that represent real properties of external (or bodily) states in a nonveridical way, projecting them back on these states, with which they causally covary. This shows that at least a start can be made by analyzing qualia functionally. A further implication is that we have to give up the distinction between access or psychological consciousness and phenomenal consciousness.
Synaesthesia and Principles of Cortical Connectivity
Kevin J. Mitchell3,1, Gary Bargary3,2, Kylie J. Barnett3,2,1 and Fiona N. Newell3,2
1Department of Genetics, 2School of Psychology, 3Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN), University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
The human cortex comprises hundreds of distinct areas that subserve different functions. These areas can be distinguished structurally by cytoarchitecture and connectivity and functionally by lesion studies and functional neuroimaging. How cortical areas are specified and become inter-connected is one of the major mysteries in developmental neuroscience. A prevailing model of developmental synaesthesia proposes that synaesthetic concurrents are caused by atypical cross-wiring from one cortical area to another. Synaesthesia may thus provide a unique model to explore the processes that establish connectivity between cortical areas. The stereotypy of the arrangement of cortical areas suggests that their positions are largely determined by a genetic programme, which may be affected in some way in inherited forms of synaesthesia. At the same time, connectivity between areas is also clearly influenced by experience, as the brain wires itself to respond optimally to common patterns of stimulation. This talk will examine what is known of these processes and consider the implications for developmental and genetic models of synaesthesia.
The Genetics of Synesthesia: Linking Genes to Perception
David Eagleman1,2,3, Arielle Kagan1,4, Karthik Sarma1, Steffie Nelson1,2
1University of Texas, Houston Medical School, 2Rice University, 3UT Austin, 4Harvard University
While synesthesia has been explored in behavioral and neuroimaging experiments, what remains unknown is its genetic basis. Synesthesia is an ideal condition for genetic analysis for 3 reasons: (1) A battery of perceptual tests allows confident phenotyping of synesthetes, (2) synesthesia clusters in families and current data suggests it may be inherited as a dominant X-linked gene, and (3) synesthetic perception may result from functional over-connectivity between neighboring neural areas, which suggests a set of candidate genes. As for the last point, the over-connectivity may either be anatomical (implicating genes involved in neuronal pruning, arborization or apoptosis) or it may be functional (implicating genes involved in the balance between inhibition and excitation). We are currently performing a family linkage analysis to map the gene(s) that are correlated with synesthesia. To this end, we have developed a battery of psychophysical tests to quickly phenotype synesthetes, i.e., to distinguish them from control subjects. These tests are offered free to the research community at www.synesthete.org. We have obtained pedigrees from several families with multiple cases of synesthesia, and we have obtained DNA samples from over 100 people in these families. A genome wide scan (Affymetrix 10k mapping) will identify most probable genetic region responsible for synesthesia in these families. Within the mapped region, candidate genes will be sequenced and screened for a segregating synesthesia-causing variation. When a probable variation is observed, 100 banked controls will be sequenced for the same variation to eliminate the possibility of a general population polymorphism. The objective of this study is to better understand and characterize the genetic basis of synesthesia.
Ongoing results of a whole-genome screen for susceptibility genes linked to synaesthesia
J. E. Asher1,2, J. A. Lamb1, S. Baron-Cohen2, A. P. Monaco1
1Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom,
Synaesthesia, a neurological condition affecting between 0.05 and 3% of the population, is characterised by anomalous sensory perception: a stimulus in one sensory modality triggers an automatic, instantaneous, consistent response in another modality (e.g. sound evokes colour) or in a different aspect of the same modality (e.g. black text evokes colour). Growing evidence links synaesthesia to cognitive dysfunction; dyslexia, dyscalculia and cognitive interference from synaesthetic experiences have been reported. Conversely, anecdotal and experimental evidence has linked synaesthesia to enhanced recall and absolute musical pitch.
Family studies have shown evidence of a strong underlying genetic predisposition with > 40% prevalence among first-degree relatives of synaesthetes and greater risk to female than to male relatives. Although previous studies have suggested that synaesthesia a single-gene condition with an X-linked dominant mode of inheritance, our work has revealed that synaesthesia is a complex condition involving multiple genes. Progress to date of a whole-genome screen using 400 microsatellite markers will be reported.
The Taste of Words to Come: Synaesthetic Sensation is Induced in Tip-of-tongue States.
Julia Simner1, Jamie Ward2
1Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square. EH8 9JZ. UK
2Department of Psychology, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT. UK
This study examines an unusual variant of developmental synaesthesia, in which words induce an involuntary sensation of taste in the mouth (lexical-gustatory synaesthesia). Previously, we have shown (Ward & Simner, 2003; Ward, Simner & Ayeung, 2005) that the apparently random pairing of words with tastes is in fact dictated by a highly structured underlying phonological rule-system (but one that the synaesthete has no conscious awareness of). Specifically, this rule-system pairs particular phonemes (speech sounds) with particular tastes. (For example, the phonemes /k/ and /m/ (e.g., common) are likely to trigger the taste of cake.) Given this phonological influence, one might hypothesise that synaesthetic tastes are induced at the moment when a word’s phonological content is processed. An alternative hypothesis is that taste experiences are elicited at the moment when the word’s meaning is retrieved from long-term memory. (In this latter case, the role of phonology would be restricted simply to stages in childhood when word-taste associations are being established; i.e., determining which words become associated with which tastes). Here we provide evidence for this latter hypothesis, by showing that synaesthetic taste can be triggered in tip-of-tongue states, when word meaning, but not phonology, is available.
Word frequency effect for word colour in german compounds (case study)
Andreas Kubitza
Universität Erfurt, Germany
Colour-grapheme synaesthete “U.K.” (23, female, student) was highly consistent with letters, digits, words and nonwords. Her word colour is driven by a dominant vowel. She was given 100 german disyllabic NN-compounds, of which 50 where low frequent (e.g. Fährmann = Fähre + Mann, 'ferryman') and 50 were high frequent words (e.g. Bahnhof = Bahn + Hof, 'station'). All compounds had a stress on the first syllable which is the lexical head at the same time. She was then to choose colours from a list for each of the given words and was asked to give every word two colours at maximum (earlier tests had shown that UK tends to give monosyllabic nouns only one colour). The question was: Are high frequent disyllabic NN compounds more likely to get only one colour than low frequent disyllabic NN compounds? The results suggest, that this is indeed the case. UK gave 22 of the 50 (44%) high frequent compounds a single colour whereas in the low frequent condition there were only 12 out of 50 (24%) with a single colour - so Bahnhof would get one colour and Fährmann two colours. According to Caramazza et al. (1985) morphologically complex words can be represented in two ways in the mental lexicon: decompositionally or as whole units. The results could be interpreted as further evidence that word frequency has an influence on the processing of morphologically complex words. Furthermore the results suggest, that morphology, besides orthography and phonology (e.g. Simner et al. 2005, Ward et al. 2005), has an influence on synaesthetic word colour - at least in German.
Semantic features associated with the shape and color of a typeface are shown to impact automatically on word reading
Peter Walker
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF
The supramodal semantic features associated with the shape and color of a typeface are shown to impact automatically on word reading. For example, when participants confirm that a named animal is small, light, or makes high-pitched sounds, they are impeded if the typeface in which the animal name appears, because of its shape or color, is judged to be big, heavy, or low. The feature associations mediating this typographic congruity effect confirm that non-synaesthetes experience a weak form of synaesthesia involving the semantic coding of stimulus features (cf. Martino & Marks, 1999). The cognitive processes involved in the typographic congruity effect are explored.