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Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
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Grapheme-Color Synesthesia in an Abugida: a Bengali Case Study.

Nicholas Root1, Pushpita Bhattacharyya1, Vilayanur S Ramachandran1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of California, La Jolla, CA 92093-0109, USA.

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Grapheme-color synesthesia was studied in a Bengali speaker, revealing unique color experiences influenced by diacritics and conjunct graphemes. This case highlights how writing systems shape synesthetic perception.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Linguistics
  • Psychology

Background:

  • Grapheme-color synesthesia involves consistent color associations with letters/numbers.
  • Most research focuses on alphabetic scripts, neglecting other writing systems.
  • Abugida scripts, like Bengali, present a unique case for studying synesthesia.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate grapheme-color synesthesia in a Bengali speaker using an abugida script.
  • To explore how script-specific features (diacritics, conjunct graphemes) influence synesthetic experiences.
  • To understand the interplay between linguistic properties and synesthetic phenomenology.

Main Methods:

  • Case study of a single Bengali synesthete (MJ).
  • Analysis of synesthetic color associations for Bengali graphemes, including diacritics and conjunct forms.
  • Comparison with synesthetic experiences in other languages and writing systems.

Main Results:

  • Diacritics in Bengali graphemes influenced perceived color, 'pulling' it towards the vowel's color.
  • Complex synesthetic experiences were reported for conjunct graphemes, unique to Brahmi-derived scripts.
  • Synesthetic associations were influenced by both language-specific orthography and universal linguistic properties.

Conclusions:

  • The Bengali writing system uniquely shapes grapheme-color synesthesia.
  • Further research on synesthesia in non-alphabetic scripts is crucial.
  • Synesthetic phenomenology offers insights into brain-based grapheme representation influenced by language.