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Achromatic synesthesias - a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
H Melero1, M Ríos-Lago2, A Peña-Melián3
1Departamento de Psicobiología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223, Spain; Departamento de Investigación, Desarrollo y Promoción, Fundación Internacional Artecittá, Spain.
Neuroimage
|May 22, 2014
Summary
This study reveals that achromatic synesthesia, like color synesthesia, involves distinct brain mechanisms and emotional components. Understanding these differences offers new insights into synesthesia and its developmental connections.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Sensory Perception
Background:
- Grapheme-color synesthesia involves consistent, automatic, and personal color associations with letters/numbers.
- Achromatic synesthetic qualities (white, black, gray) are frequently observed but less studied.
- The neural basis and broader experiential components of synesthesia remain incompletely understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural basis of achromatic synesthesias.
- To explore the relationship between achromatic and chromatic synesthesias.
- To examine the achromatic congruency effect and its implications for synesthetic experience.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to study associator grapheme-color synesthetes and controls.
- Participants were stimulated with real chromatic/achromatic stimuli (Mondrians) and synesthetic inducers (letters/numbers).
- Analysis included real vs. synesthetic color/achromaticity processing and BOLD signal responses to various synesthetic inducers.
Main Results:
- Real and synesthetic colors/achromaticity do not fully share neural mechanisms.
- Functional brain differences in synesthetes are distributed, involving perceptual, attentional, and emotional components.
- Achromatic synesthesia provides evidence for the emotional binding theory, linking synesthesia to other developmental modalities.
Conclusions:
- Synesthetic experiences, including achromatic ones, involve complex, distributed neural networks.
- The findings support the emotional binding theory, highlighting the role of emotion in synesthesia.
- This research deepens the understanding of synesthesia beyond color associations, encompassing broader sensory and emotional integration.
