TY - JOUR
T1 - When blue is larger than red
T2 - Colors influence numerical cognition in synesthesia
AU - Kadosh, Roi Cohen
AU - Sagiv, Noam
AU - Linden, David E.J.
AU - Robertson, Lynn C.
AU - Elinger, Gali
AU - Henik, Avishai
PY - 2005/11/1
Y1 - 2005/11/1
N2 - In synesthesia, certain stimuli ("inducers") may give rise to perceptual experience in additional modalities not normally associated with them ("concurrent"). For example, color-grapheme synesthetes automatically perceive achromatic numbers as colored (e.g., 7 is turquoise). Although synesthetes know when a given color matches the one evoked by a certain number, colors do not automatically give rise to any sort of number experience. The behavioral consequences of synesthesia have been documented using Stroop-like paradigms, usually using color judgments. Owing to the unidirectional nature of the synesthetic experience, little has been done to obtain performance measures that could indicate whether bidirectional cross-activation occurs in synesthesia. Here it is shown that colors do implicitly evoke numerical magnitudes in color-grapheme synesthetes, but not in nonsynesthetic participants. It is proposed that bidirectional coactivation of brain areas is responsible for the links between color and magnitude processing in color-grapheme synesthesia and that unidirectional models of synesthesia might have to be revised.
AB - In synesthesia, certain stimuli ("inducers") may give rise to perceptual experience in additional modalities not normally associated with them ("concurrent"). For example, color-grapheme synesthetes automatically perceive achromatic numbers as colored (e.g., 7 is turquoise). Although synesthetes know when a given color matches the one evoked by a certain number, colors do not automatically give rise to any sort of number experience. The behavioral consequences of synesthesia have been documented using Stroop-like paradigms, usually using color judgments. Owing to the unidirectional nature of the synesthetic experience, little has been done to obtain performance measures that could indicate whether bidirectional cross-activation occurs in synesthesia. Here it is shown that colors do implicitly evoke numerical magnitudes in color-grapheme synesthetes, but not in nonsynesthetic participants. It is proposed that bidirectional coactivation of brain areas is responsible for the links between color and magnitude processing in color-grapheme synesthesia and that unidirectional models of synesthesia might have to be revised.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=27644576754&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1162/089892905774589181
DO - 10.1162/089892905774589181
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:27644576754
SN - 0898-929X
VL - 17
SP - 1766
EP - 1773
JO - Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
IS - 11
ER -