Synaesthetic associations decrease during infancy
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 30, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
Published on: February 20, 2014
Katie Wagner1, Karen R Dobkins
1Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. kdobkins@ucsd.edu
Abstract:
Early development is characterized by a period of exuberant neural connectivity followed by a retraction and reweighting of connections over the course of development. It has been proposed that this connectivity may facilitate arbitrary sensory experiences in infants that are unlike anything experienced by typical adults but are similar to the sensory experiences of adults with synaesthesia, a rare sensory phenomenon that has been associated with exuberant neural connectivity and that is characterized by strong arbitrary associations between different sensations. We provide the first evidence for this infant-synaesthesia hypothesis by showing that the presence of particular shapes influences color preferences in typical 2- and 3-month-olds, but not in 8-month-olds or adults. These results are consistent with the possibility that exuberant neural connectivity facilitates synaesthetic associations during infancy that are typically eliminated during development, but that a failure of the retraction process leads in rare cases to synaesthesia in adults.
Related Concept Videos
Synesthesia
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development
Exploration...
Association Areas of the Cortex
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Socioemotional Development during Infancy
Primary Temperament Types
Stella Chess...
Visual Agnosia
Olfactory Receptors: Location and Structure
