Here we studied a group of synaesthetes for whom sounds elicit consistent visual experiences of coloured 'geometric objects' located at specific spatial location. Previous research primarily focuses on synaesthetic colour, but little is known about non-colour synaesthetic visual features. Auditory-visual synaesthesia is an unusual form of cross-modal integration in which sounds evoke involuntary visual experiences. ![]() These findings suggest theories of the brain mechanisms of synaesthesia need to incorporate a broader neural network underpinning multiple visual features, perceptual knowledge, and feature integration, rather than solely focussing on colour-sensitive areas.Ībstract = "Our brain constantly integrates signals across different senses. We provide the first objective evidence that visual synaesthetic experience can involve multiple features forming object-like percepts and suggest that each feature can be selected by attention despite it being internally generated. Furthermore, we found some evidence for task-specific effects consistent with feature-based attention acting on the constituent features of synaesthetic objects: synaesthetic colours appeared to have a stronger impact on performance than synaesthetic shapes when synaesthetes attended to colour, and vice versa when they attended to shape. We found irrelevant sounds influenced performance, as quantified by congruency effects, demonstrating that synaesthetes were not able to suppress their synaesthetic experiences even when these were irrelevant for the task. To objectively assess the impact of synaesthetic objects on behaviour, we devised a multi-feature cross-modal synaesthetic congruency paradigm and asked participants to perform speeded colour or shape discrimination. Changes in auditory pitch alter the brightness, size, and spatial height of synaesthetic experiences in a systematic manner resembling the cross-modal correspondences of non-synaesthetes, implying synaesthesia may recruit cognitive/neural mechanisms for 'normal' cross-modal processes. ![]() ![]() The term is from the Ancient Greek σύν syn, 'together', and αἴσθησις aisthēsis, ' sensation'.Our brain constantly integrates signals across different senses. The first medical account came from German physician Georg Tobias Ludwig Sachs in 1812. However, there is disagreement as to whether Locke described an actual instance of synesthesia or was using a metaphor. The earliest recorded case of synesthesia is attributed to the Oxford University academic and philosopher John Locke, who, in 1690, made a report about a blind man who said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet. These are usually the first abstract concepts that educational systems require children to learn. This hypothesis-referred to as semantic vacuum hypothesis-could explain why the most common forms of synesthesia are grapheme-color, spatial sequence, and number form. It has been suggested that synesthesia develops during childhood when children are intensively engaged with abstract concepts for the first time. Little is known about how synesthesia develops. ![]() Most synesthetes see characters just as others do (in whichever color actually displayed) but may simultaneously perceive colors as associated with or evoked by each one. How someone with synesthesia might perceive certain letters and numbers.
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