Pseudo-Synesthesia through Reading Books with Colored Letters

Background Synesthesia is a phenomenon where a stimulus produces consistent extraordinary subjective experiences. A relatively common type of synesthesia involves perception of color when viewing letters (e.g. the letter ‘a’ always appears as light blue). In this study, we examine whether traits typically regarded as markers of synesthesia can be acquired by simply reading in color. Methodology/Principal Findings Non-synesthetes were given specially prepared colored books to read. A modified Stroop task was administered before and after reading. A perceptual crowding task was administered after reading. Reading one book (>49,000 words) was sufficient to induce effects regarded as behavioral markers for synesthesia. The results of the Stroop tasks indicate that it is possible to learn letter-color associations through reading in color (F(1, 14) = 5.85, p = .030). Furthermore, Stroop effects correlated with subjective reports about experiencing letters in color (r(13) = 0.51, p = .05). The frequency of viewing letters is related to the level of association as seen by the difference in the Stroop effect size between upper- and lower-case letters (t(14) = 2.79, p = .014) and in a subgroup of participants whose Stroop effects increased as they continued to read in color. Readers did not show significant performance advantages on the crowding task compared to controls. Acknowledging the many differences between trainees and synesthetes, results suggest that it may be possible to acquire a subset of synesthetic behavioral traits in adulthood through training. Conclusion/Significance To our knowledge, this is the first evidence of acquiring letter-color associations through reading in color. Reading in color appears to be a promising avenue in which we may explore the differences and similarities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Additionally, reading in color is a plausible method for a long-term ‘synesthetic’ training program

Consensus Definition of Misophonia: A Delphi Study

Misophonia is a disorder of decreased tolerance to specific sounds or their associated stimuli that has been characterized using different language and methodologies. The absence of a common understanding or foundational definition of misophonia hinders progress in research to understand the disorder and develop effective treatments for individuals suffering from misophonia. From June 2020 through January 2021, the authors conducted a study to determine whether a committee of experts with diverse expertise related to misophonia could develop a consensus definition of misophonia. An expert committee used a modified Delphi method to evaluate candidate definitional statements that were identified through a systematic review of the published literature. Over four rounds of iterative voting, revision, and exclusion, the committee made decisions to include, exclude, or revise these statements in the definition based on the currently available scientific and clinical evidence. A definitional statement was included in the final definition only after reaching consensus at 80% or more of the committee agreeing with its premise and phrasing. The results of this rigorous consensus-building process were compiled into a final definition of misophonia that is presented here. This definition will serve as an important step to bring cohesion to the growing field of researchers and clinicians who seek to better understand and support individuals experiencing misophonia

Regulatory factors influence grapheme-color associations in synesthete and non-synesthetes: a review and model

Grapheme-color synesthetes experience linguistic symbols (e.g., letters of the alphabet) as having a consistent color (e.g., “The letter S is burgundy red”). Intriguingly, when non-synesthetes are forced to choose colors for letters, similar non-random distributions are observed. Why are certain letters likelier to be associated with certain colors? Researchers have long sought to explain these trends, and in the past few decades numerous studies have reported correlations between synesthetic colors and various properties of letters, such as ordinal position, frequency in the language, and even pronunciation. These influences, which we call “Regulatory Factors” (RFs), each explain some fraction of the variation in observed associations. In the present work, we provide an updated review of the literature, covering all known studies of RFs. We describe each RF and the operationalization that was used to measure it. For each RF, we also replicate the results in our own database of synesthetes and non-synesthetes, in some cases testing for the first time whether the RF influences the associations of non-synesthete controls. Finally, we introduce a new statistical model of synesthetic associations, that can evaluate the effect of all RFs in a single model

Executive functions in synesthesia

In grapheme-color synesthesia, a number or letter can evoke two different and possibly conflicting (real and synesthetic) color sensations at the same time. In this study, we investigate the relationship between synesthesia and executive control functions. First, no general skill differences were obtained between synesthetes and non-synesthetes in classic executive control paradigms. Furthermore, classic executive control effects did not interact with synesthetic behavioral effects. Third, we found support for our hypothesis that inhibition of a synesthetic color takes effort and time. Finally, individual differences analyses showed no relationship between the two skills; performance on a 'normal' Stroop task does not predict performance on a synesthetic Stroop task. Across four studies, the current results consistently show no clear relationship between executive control functions and synesthetic behavioral effects. This raises the question of which mechanisms are at play in synesthetic 'management' during the presence of two conflicting (real and synesthetic) sensations. ?? 2012 Elsevier Inc

The Stroop effect versus self-report rating of color experience.

<p>Participants indicated on a 5-pt Likert scale how much they agreed with the question: “I am experiencing color when thinking about certain letters”. This question is correlated with the Stroop effect: the difference between congruent and incongruent trials during a color naming task.</p