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Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
Published on: February 20, 2014
Synesthesia and number cognition in children.
Jennifer A K Green1, Usha Goswami
1Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of Cambridge, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2PQ, UK. jakg2@cam.ac.uk
Cognition
|March 14, 2007
Summary
Children with grapheme-color synesthesia experience challenges in numerical tasks when digit colors conflict with their perceptions. This involuntary synesthesia impacts numerical cognition in children.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Developmental neuroscience
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Grapheme-color synesthesia, where digits trigger color experiences (photisms), is consistent and involuntary in adults.
- Previous research has not systematically investigated synesthesia in children.
- Synesthesia is linked to number concept in adult cognition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically investigate grapheme-color synesthesia in children aged 7–15 years.
- To determine if synesthesia impacts numerical cognition in children.
- To compare grapheme-color synesthesia with phoneme-color synesthesia in children's numerical tasks.
Main Methods:
- A systematic study involving children aged 7–15 years.
- Assessment of involuntary difficulties in numerical tasks.
- Presentation of digits in colors congruent and incongruent with participants' photisms.
Main Results:
- Children with grapheme-color synesthesia experienced involuntary difficulties in numerical tasks when digit colors were incongruent with their photisms.
- Children with phoneme-color synesthesia did not show these difficulties.
- The findings suggest a link between synesthesia and numerical cognition in children.
Conclusions:
- Grapheme-color synesthesia in children is involuntary and affects numerical task performance.
- Synesthesia in children has significant implications for understanding numerical cognition.
- This study highlights the importance of considering synesthesia in developmental studies of cognition.
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