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Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences

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posted on 2023-06-08, 19:06 authored by Daniel Bor, Nicolas Rothen, David SchwartzmanDavid Schwartzman, Stephanie Clayton, Anil SethAnil Seth
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.

Funding

Sackler Centre - donation; G0951; SACKLER-DR MORTIMER AND THERESA SACKLER FOUNDATION

CEEDS: The Collective Experience of Empathic Data Systems; G0270; EUROPEAN UNION; FP7-ICT-25879

SNSF- Swiss National Science Foundation; PBBEP1 133498

Towards a next-generation computational neuroscience; G0305; EPSRC-ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL; EP/G007543/1

SNSF; PA00P1_145370

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Scientific Reports

ISSN

2045-2322

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Issue

1

Volume

4

Article number

a7089

Department affiliated with

  • Informatics Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2014-11-18

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2014-11-18

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2014-11-18

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