Month-space synaesthetes experience months as sequences arranged in spatially defined configurations. While most works on synaesthesia have studied its perceptual implications, this study focuses on the synaesthetic influence on a synaesthete's action behaviour. S.M., a month-space synaesthete, and 5 matched controls performed a spatial Stroop-like task in a haptics and virtual reality combined...

Grapheme–color synesthetes perceive particular colors when seeing a letter, word or number (grapheme). Functional neuroimaging studies have provided some evidence in favor of a neural basis for this type of synesthesia. Most of these studies have reported extra activations in the fusiform gyrus, which is known to be involved in color, letter and word processing. The present study examined diffe...

The cross-modal literature posits a weak-to-strong continuum of synesthesia. One extreme views cross-modal associations as idiosyncratic and unique to synesthetes. The other extreme suggests that cross-modal associations follow a general pattern across individuals, and are mediated by emotional associations. We tested these views by examining differences between music-color synesthetes and non-...

In synesthesia, a certain stimulus (e.g. grapheme) is associated automatically and consistently with a stable perceptual-like experience (e.g. color). These associations are acquired in early childhood and remain robust throughout the lifetime. Synesthetic associations can transfer to novel inducers in adulthood as one learns a second language that uses another writing system. However, it is no...

The neural mechanisms involved in binding features such as shape and color are a matter of some debate. Does accurate binding rely on spatial attention functions of the parietal lobe or can it occur without attentional input? One extraordinary phenomenon that may shed light on this question is that of chromatic-graphemic synesthesia, a rare condition in which letter shapes evoke color perceptio...

Synesthesia is defined as the involuntary and automatic perception of a stimulus in 2 or more sensory modalities (i.e., cross-modal linkage). Colored-hearing synesthetes experience colors when hearing tones or spoken utterances. Based on event-related potentials we employed electric brain tomography with high temporal resolution in colored-hearing synesthetes and nonsynesthetic controls during ...

Neural plasticity induced by stroke can mediate positive outcomes, such as recovery of function, but can also result in the formation of abnormal connections with negative consequences for perception and cognition. In three experiments using blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined the neural substrates of acquired auditory-tactile synesthesia, in w...

BACKGROUND Some studies, most of them case-reports, suggest that synesthetes have an advantage in visual search and episodic memory tasks. The goal of this study was to examine this hypothesis in a group study. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In the present study, we tested thirteen grapheme-color synesthetes and we compared their performance on a visual search task and a memory test to an age...