Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Synesthesia01:27

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a remarkable condition where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with synesthesia experience a blending or crossing of their senses, such as sight and sound, leading to cross-modal sensations. In this condition, the stimulation of one sense, such as hearing a number or musical note, triggers an experience of another sense, like sensing a specific color, taste, or smell. People...
Tactile and Chemical Senses01:27

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex. This...
Sensory Modalities01:15

Sensory Modalities

Sensation typically is the process by which the sensory receptors and sense organs detect stimuli from the internal and external environment and transmit this information to the central nervous system for processing.
General senses refer to the broad category of sensory information detected by receptors in the body and can be further grouped into somatic and visceral senses. Somatic sensations include touch, pressure, temperature, and pain and are essential for navigating our environment and...
Visual Agnosia01:12

Visual Agnosia

Visual agnosia is a condition characterized by the inability to recognize visually presented objects despite having normal vision. For instance, a person with visual agnosia can describe the shape and color of an object but cannot identify or name it. This impairment does not affect their visual field, acuity, color vision, brightness discrimination, language, or memory. An example of this condition in a social setting is someone at a dinner party asking for "that silver thing with a round end"...
Auditory Perception01:17

Auditory Perception

The auditory system is essential for sound perception, utilizing various critical structures. When sound waves enter the outer ear, they travel through the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. These vibrations are then transmitted to the middle ear, where three tiny bones – the malleus, incus, and stapes – amplify the sound. This amplification is crucial, as it ensures that the sound vibrations are strong enough to be conveyed to the inner ear. These vibrations then reach the cochlea, a...
Somatosensation01:33

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Absolute pitch and sound-color synesthesia provide for unique learning opportunities.

Consciousness and cognition·2026
Same author

Test-retest reliability analysis of resting-state EEG measures and their association with long-term memory in children and adults.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2026
Same author

Task switching hurts memory in adults but not in children.

Acta psychologica·2026
Same author

Correction: Spacing, feedback, and testing boost vocabulary learning in a web application.

Frontiers in psychology·2025
Same author

Levels of Processing Effects on Memory for Color-Object Associations.

Journal of cognition·2025
Same author

Correlates of implicit semantic processing as revealed by representational similarity analysis applied to EEG.

iScience·2024
Same journal

Benchmarking spatial discrimination thresholds of two-frame motion defined forms compared to luminance and stereoscopic defined forms.

Perception·2026
Same journal

The effect of face masks on the perception of trustworthiness and competence in individuals with autistic traits.

Perception·2026
Same journal

The importance of external features for categorizing ethnicity: can Koreans identify Korean, Japanese, and Chinese faces?

Perception·2026
Same journal

Interoception, alexithymia, and motor congruency: Psychological drivers of body ownership in virtual reality.

Perception·2026
Same journal

The frustration of a small <i>n</i>.

Perception·2026
Same journal

Why do we have two eyes.

Perception·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 25, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
10:27

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

Training synaesthesia.

Nicolas Rothen1, Andrea-Laura Wantz, Beat Meier

  • 1Department of Psychology and Center for Cognition, Learning, and Memory, University of Bern, Muesmattstrasse 45, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland. nicolas.rothen@gmail.com

Perception
|February 8, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Synaesthesia, a condition where senses intertwine, may be learned. Adaptive training proved more effective than non-adaptive training in mimicking synaesthetic experiences in non-synaesthetes.

More Related Videos

Simultaneous Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
10:25

Simultaneous Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Published on: June 5, 2017

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning
08:43

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning

Published on: October 22, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 25, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
10:27

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

Simultaneous Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
10:25

Simultaneous Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Published on: June 5, 2017

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning
08:43

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning

Published on: October 22, 2015

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Sensory Perception

Background:

  • Synaesthesia, the experience of sensory blending, is often linked to cultural artifacts like graphemes, suggesting a learning component.
  • While typically lifelong, recent studies indicate synaesthesia-like experiences can be induced in non-synaesthetes.
  • The extent to which synaesthesia is learned or can be trained remains an open question in cognitive science.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of learning in the development of synaesthesia.
  • To compare the effectiveness of adaptive versus non-adaptive training in mimicking synaesthetic experiences.
  • To determine if synaesthesia can be trained in individuals without the condition.

Main Methods:

  • A comparative study design was employed, contrasting adaptive and non-adaptive training protocols.
  • Participants' responses were assessed using two distinct priming tasks.
  • Pre- and post-training assessments were conducted to measure changes in synaesthetic experiences.

Main Results:

  • The adaptive training group exhibited significantly stronger priming effects compared to the non-adaptive group.
  • These findings suggest that adaptive training is a more efficient method for inducing synaesthesia-like experiences.
  • The study provides evidence supporting the trainability of synaesthetic perception.

Conclusions:

  • Adaptive training methods are more effective in mimicking synaesthesia than non-adaptive approaches.
  • This research contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the learnability of synaesthesia.
  • The findings have implications for understanding the plasticity of sensory experiences and cognitive training.