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Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
Published on: February 20, 2014
Does color synesthesia pose a paradox for early-selection theories of attention?
Bruno Laeng1, Frode Svartdal, Hella Oelmann
1Department of Psychology, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway. bruno@psyk.uit.no
Abstract:
P.M. is a synesthete who experiences colors when viewing alphanumeric symbols. Her search for a target differing from distractors by a synesthetic color feature takes the form of a pop-out search. Thus, it would seem that synesthesia can occur preattentively. However, discrepancies between the regression functions of response times observed in target-present trials and target-absent trials, and the fact that fast response times occur only when the target is within a few degrees of visual angle from fixation, indicate that P.M.'s synesthesia does not occur preattentively, but rather is within the focus of attention. We conclude that synesthesia is a genuine perceptual phenomenon that can have substantial influence on visual processing.
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