SYNESTHETIC PERCEPTION OF TEMPERATURE AND SOUND DURING NUMERICAL PROCESSING
Journal Title: Acta Neuropsychologica - Year 2015, Vol 13, Issue 2
Abstract
Background: Synesthesia is a phenomenon found in some individuals wherein a particular sensory stimulus generates a secondary response which is seemingly immaterial to the initial stimulus. This was once believed to be an extremely rare occurrence but in recent years, numerous scientific reports of various forms of synesthesia have emerged. It is most likely that a trait that is retained throughout the course of evolution provides certain benefits to the individual. Subject PP, a 39-year-old mathematics teacher reported that temperatures and/or sounds were frequently evoked during her processing of numbers and operations. We propose that sy nesthesia may be employed by PP to help in the processing of numbers and mathematical computations.Case study: PP was first interviewed by the researchers after she was discovered to be a synesthete. In our experiment, she was presented with notecards containing numbers and operations and was asked to report concurrent perceptions of temperature and sounds in each case. Composite numbers induced a higher average temperature response (7.30 +/- 1.83 units) compared to prime numbers (5.41 +/- 2.92 units; two-tailed t-test with unequal variances, p<0.001). Sounds, which may be mentally perceived or physically uttered, were induced more frequently by operations (26%) than by numbers (2%).Conclusions: We conclude that the mathematical property of PP is correlated to the way her synesthetic concurrent is expressed and we propose that synesthesia may be employed by PP to help in the processing of numbers and mathematical computations.
Authors and Affiliations
Sabina Dang, Chui Sien Chan
Keywords
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