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Learning in colour: children with grapheme-colour synaesthesia show cognitive benefits in vocabulary and self-evaluated reading

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posted on 2023-06-09, 22:20 authored by Rebecca SmeesRebecca Smees, James Hughes, Duncan A Carmichael, Julia SimnerJulia Simner
Cognitive benefits associated with grapheme-colour synaesthesia in adults are well documented, but far less is known about whether such benefits might arise in synaesthetes as children. One previous study on a very small group of randomly sampled child synaesthetes found cognitive benefits in short-term memory and processing speed (the ability to quickly scan an array of images and discriminate between them), but was inconclusive for a test of receptive vocabulary. Using a stratified population sample (Growing Up in Scotland Project, Edinburgh, UK: Scottish Executive, 2007), we investigated the performance of a large cohort of child grapheme-colour synaesthetes using four literacy measures taken at age 10 years. These were three verbal comprehension measures (expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary and sentence comprehension) and one measure of academic self-concept in reading (plus one measure of academic self-concept in numeracy as a comparison). After controlling for demographic differences between groups, synaesthetes showed significantly enhanced performance for expressive and receptive vocabulary compared to their peers, but no benefits in sentence comprehension. Child synaesthetes also reported significantly higher academic self-concept for reading, but not for numeracy. Finally, we found that synaesthetes made significantly more progress than controls across the primary school years, although they began school with no a priori advantage. Our study provides powerful new evidence that children with grapheme-colour synaesthesia show vocabulary and literacy differences, which we contextualize within a theory of synaesthetic development.

Funding

MULTISENSE:Lifespan Development of Typical & Atypical Multisensory Perception; G1568; EUROPEAN UNION; 617678

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

ISSN

0962-8436

Publisher

The Royal Society

Issue

1787

Volume

374

Article number

a20180348

Event location

England

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2020-12-02

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2020-12-02

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2020-12-01