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Updated: May 5, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
Published on: February 20, 2014
Grapheme learning and grapheme-color synesthesia: toward a comprehensive model of grapheme-color association
Michiko Asano1, Kazuhiko Yokosawa
1Department of Environment and Information Studies, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University Fujisawa, Japan ; Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Tokyo, Japan ; Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University Tokyo, Japan.
Abstract:
Recent progress in grapheme-color synesthesia research has revealed that certain regularities, as well as individual differences, figure into grapheme-color associations. Although several factors are known to regulate grapheme-color associations, the impact of factors, including their interrelationships, on synesthesia remains unclear. We investigated determinants of synesthetic color for graphemes (characters, letters) of Hiragana, a phonetic script in the Japanese language, and the English alphabet. Results revealed that grapheme ordinality was the strongest predictor of synesthetic colors for Hiragana characters, followed by character sound, and visual shape. Ordinality and visual shapes also significantly predicted synesthetic colors for English alphabet letters, however, sounds did not. The relative impact of grapheme properties on grapheme-color associations and the differences between these two writing systems are accounted for by considering the way graphemes are processed in the brain and introduced during an individual's development. A new model is proposed which takes into account the developmental process of grapheme learning. The model provides comprehensive explanation of synesthetic grapheme-color association determination processes, including the differences across writing systems.
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