Grapheme-Color Synesthetes Show Enhanced Crossmodal Processing Between Auditory and Visual Modalities
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Differential Prosocial Behaviour Without Altered Physical Responses in Mirror Sensory Synesthesia
Differential Prosocial Behaviour Without Altered Physical Responses in Mirror Sensory Synesthesia Kalliopi Ioumpa1 Supervisors: Rob van Lier1, Tessa M. van Leeuwen1, Sarah Graham2 1Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, The Netherlands 2 Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands synesthetes mirror the pain or touch that they observe in other people on their own body. It has not been Previous studies have yielded contradictory evidence on whether mirror sensory synesthetes demonstrate sensory synesthesia. We hypothesised that synesthetes would show more empathic and altruistic behaviour and enhanced theory of mind, and that this would relate to the physiological and rating responses to arousing pictures. We diagnosed mirror-sensory synesthetes with an established touch-interference paradigm and heart rate, skin conductance, and pupil dilation were recorded. Cortisol levels were assessed. Altruism was tested with a one shot Dictator’s Game where participants divided money between themselves and a second player. Questionnaires on empathy, theory of mind, personality traits, and pain perception were completed. Eighteen mirror-sensory synesthetes and 18 controls participated. Our results show that mirror sensory synesthetes are more altruistic and more strongly impacted by positive and negative images. The stronger the but makes mirror-sensory-synesthetes develop personality characteristics similar to synesthetes of other the empathy measures, highlighting the need for further investigation on the hypothesis. Keywords: mirror sensory synesthesia, empathy, altruism, theory of mind, stress Corresponding author: Kalliopi Ioumpa; E-mail: [email protected] Nijmegen CNS | VOL 12 | ISSUE 2 25 Kalliopi Ioumpa (as if they were looking in a mirror, a specular sensory stimuli leading to unusual, additional experiences. -
Vision Perceptually Restores Auditory Spectral Dynamics in Speech
Vision Perceptually Restores Auditory Spectral Dynamics in Speech John Plass1,2, David Brang1, Satoru Suzuki2,3, Marcia Grabowecky2,3 1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA 2Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA 3Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA Abstract Visual speech facilitates auditory speech perception,[1–3] but the visual cues responsible for these effects and the crossmodal information they provide remain unclear. Because visible articulators shape the spectral content of auditory speech,[4–6] we hypothesized that listeners may be able to extract spectrotemporal information from visual speech to facilitate auditory speech perception. To uncover statistical regularities that could subserve such facilitations, we compared the resonant frequency of the oral cavity to the shape of the oral aperture during speech. We found that the time-frequency dynamics of oral resonances could be recovered with unexpectedly high precision from the shape of the mouth during speech. Because both auditory frequency modulations[7–9] and visual shape properties[10] are neurally encoded as mid-level perceptual features, we hypothesized that this feature-level correspondence would allow for spectrotemporal information to be recovered from visual speech without reference to higher order (e.g., phonemic) speech representations. Isolating these features from other speech cues, we found that speech-based shape deformations improved sensitivity for corresponding frequency modulations, suggesting that the perceptual system exploits crossmodal correlations in mid-level feature representations to enhance speech perception. To test whether this correspondence could be used to improve comprehension, we selectively degraded the spectral or temporal dimensions of auditory sentence spectrograms to assess how well visual speech facilitated comprehension under each degradation condition. -
Synesthetes: a Handbook
Synesthetes: a handbook by Sean A. Day i © 2016 Sean A. Day All pictures and diagrams used in this publication are either in public domain or are the property of Sean A. Day ii Dedications To the following: Susanne Michaela Wiesner Midori Ming-Mei Cameo Myrdene Anderson and subscribers to the Synesthesia List, past and present iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction – What is synesthesia? ................................................... 1 Definition......................................................................................................... 1 The Synesthesia ListSM .................................................................................... 3 What causes synesthesia? ................................................................................ 4 What are the characteristics of synesthesia? .................................................... 6 On synesthesia being “abnormal” and ineffable ............................................ 11 Chapter 2: What is the full range of possibilities of types of synesthesia? ........ 13 How many different types of synesthesia are there? ..................................... 13 Can synesthesia be two-way? ........................................................................ 22 What is the ratio of synesthetes to non-synesthetes? ..................................... 22 What is the age of onset for congenital synesthesia? ..................................... 23 Chapter 3: From graphemes ............................................................................... 25 -
Does Binding of Synesthetic Color to the Evoking Grapheme Require Attention?
In press, Cortex DOES BINDING OF SYNESTHETIC COLOR TO THE EVOKING GRAPHEME REQUIRE ATTENTION? Noam Sagiv1,2, Jeffrey Heer3, Lynn Robertson1,4 1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley 2Department of Psychology, University College London 3Computer Science Department, University of California, Berkeley 4Neurology Research Services, Veterans Administration, Martinez, CA Running page heading: The Role of Attention in Synesthesia Address correspondence to: Noam Sagiv Department of Psychology e-mail University College London 26 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AP Tel: +44-20-7679-5365 United Kingdom Fax: +44-20-7436-4276 ABSTRACT 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 perceptions. A popular suggestion is that synesthesia results from cross-activation between different functional regions (e.g., between shape and color areas of the ventral pathway). Under such conditions binding may not require parietal involvement and could occur preattentively. We tested this hypothesis in two synesthetes who perceived grayscale letters and digits in color. We found no evidence for preattentive binding using a visual search paradigm in which the target was a synesthetic inducer. In another experiment involving color judgments, we show that the congruency of target color and the synesthetic color of irrelevant digits modulates performance more when the digits are included within the attended region of space. -
An Event-Related Potential Study of Auditory–Visual Synesthesia
Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colors: An Event-related Potential Study of Auditory–Visual Synesthesia Aviva I. Goller1, Leun J. Otten2, and Jamie Ward1 Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/21/10/1869/1759787/jocn.2009.21134.pdf by guest on 18 May 2021 Abstract & In auditory–visual synesthesia, sounds automatically elicit the controls attended to the auditory dimension alone. There conscious and reliable visual experiences. It is presently un- were clear differences between synesthetes and controls that known whether this reflects early or late processes in the emerged early (100 msec after tone onset). These differences brain. It is also unknown whether adult audiovisual synesthe- tended to lie in deflections of the auditory-evoked potential sia resembles auditory-induced visual illusions that can some- (e.g., the auditory N1, P2, and N2) rather than the presence times occur in the general population or whether it resembles of an additional posterior deflection. The differences occurred the electrophysiological deflection over occipital sites that has irrespective of what the synesthetes attended to (although been noted in infancy and has been likened to synesthesia. attention had a late effect). The results suggest that differences Electrical brain activity was recorded from adult synesthetes between synesthetes and others occur early in time, and that and control participants who were played brief tones and re- synesthesia is qualitatively different from similar effects found quired to monitor for an infrequent auditory target. The syn- in infants and certain auditory-induced visual illusions in adults. esthetes were instructed to attend either to the auditory or to In addition, we report two novel cases of synesthesia in which the visual (i.e., synesthetic) dimension of the tone, whereas colors elicit sounds, and vice versa. -
Enhanced Self-Reported Affect and Prosocial Behaviour Without Differential Physiological Responses in Mirror-Sensory Synesthesia
Enhanced self-reported affect and prosocial behaviour without differential physiological responses in mirror-sensory synesthesia Kalliopi Ioumpaa,b,*, Sarah A. Grahamc, Tommy Clausnera, Simon E. Fisher a,c, Rob van Liera, Tessa M. van Leeuwena,* a Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, the Netherlands b Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, the Netherlands c Language and Genetics Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands Accepted for publication in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B * Corresponding authors: Kalliopi Ioumpa ([email protected]) Tessa M. van Leeuwen ([email protected]) 1 Abstract Mirror-sensory synesthetes mirror the pain or touch that they observe in other people on their own bodies. This type of synesthesia has been associated with enhanced empathy. We investigated whether the enhanced empathy of people with mirror-sensory synesthesia influences experience of situations involving touch or pain, and whether it affects their prosocial decision making. Mirror-sensory synesthetes (N=18, all female), verified with a touch-interference paradigm, were compared to a similar number of age-matched control individuals (all female). Participants viewed arousing images depicting pain or touch; we recorded subjective valence and arousal ratings, and physiological responses, hypothesizing more extreme reactions in synesthetes. The subjective impact of positive and negative images was stronger in synesthetes than in control participants; the stronger the reported synesthesia, the more extreme the picture ratings. However, there was no evidence for differential physiological or hormonal responses to arousing pictures. Prosocial decision making was assessed with an economic game assessing altruism, in which participants had to divide money between themselves and a second player. -
A Placebo-Controlled Investigation of Synaesthesia-Like Experiences Under LSD
2016, Neuropsychologia A placebo-controlled investigation of synaesthesia-like experiences under LSD Devin B. Terhune Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK David P. Luke Department of Psychology & Counselling, University of Greenwich, London, UK Mendel Kaelen Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK Mark Bolstridge Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK Amanda Feilding The Beckley Foundation, Beckley Park, Oxford, UK David Nutt Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK Robin Carhart-Harris Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK Jamie Ward Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK Correspondence: Devin B. Terhune Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK Email: [email protected] Robin Carhart-Harris Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK Email: [email protected] Jamie Ward Department of Psychology, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK Email: [email protected] Investigating LSD-induced synaesthesia 2 Abstract The induction of synaesthesia in non-synaesthetes has the potential to illuminate the mechanisms that contribute to the development of this condition and the shaping of its phenomenology. Previous research suggests that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) reliably induces synaesthesia-like experiences in non- synaesthetes. However, these studies suffer from a number of methodological limitations including lack of a placebo control and the absence of rigorous measures used to test established criteria for genuine synaesthesia. -
Is There Is a Burden Attached to Synaesthesia? Health Screening of Synaesthetes in the General Population
Is there is a burden attached to synaesthesia? Health screening of synaesthetes in the general population Article (Accepted Version) Carmichael, Duncan A, Smees, Rebecca, Shillcock, Richard C and Simner, Julia (2019) Is there is a burden attached to synaesthesia? Health screening of synaesthetes in the general population. British Journal of Psychology, 110 (3). pp. 530-548. ISSN 0007-1269 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/79272/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Is there is a burden attached to synaesthesia? Health screening of synaesthetes in the general population Duncan A. -
Introduction
SPECOM'2006, St. Petersburg, 25-29 June 2006 Crossmodal Integration and McGurk-Effect in Synthetic Audiovisual Speech Katja Grauwinkel1 & Sascha Fagel2 1Department of Computer Sciences and Media, TFH Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Germany [email protected] 2Institute for Speech and Communication, Berlin University of Technology, Germany [email protected] synthesiser with a 3-dimensional animated head. The Abstract embedded modules are a phonetic articulation module, an This paper presents the results of a study investigating audio synthesis module, a visual articulation module, and a crossmodal processing of audiovisually synthesised speech face module. The phonetic articulation module creates the stimuli. The perception of facial gestures has a great influence phonetic information, which consists of an appropriate phone on the interpretation of a speech signal. Not only chain on the one hand and – as prosodic information – phone paralinguistic information of the speakers emotional state or and pause durations and a fundamental frequency course on motivation can be obtained. Especially if the acoustic signal is the other hand. From this data, the audio synthesis module unclear, e.g. because of background noise or reverberation, generates the audio signal and the visual articulation module watching the facial gestures can enhance speech intelligibility. generates motion information. The audio signal and the On the other hand, visual information that is incongruent to motion information are merged by the face module to create auditory information can also reduce the efficiency of acoustic the complete animation. The MBROLA speech synthesiser speech features, even if the acoustic signal is of good quality. [8] is embedded in the audio synthesis module to generate The way how two modalities interact with each other audible speech. -
Investigating Misophonia: a Review of the Empirical Literature, Clinical Implications, and a Research Agenda
REVIEW published: 07 February 2018 doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00036 Investigating Misophonia: A Review of the Empirical Literature, Clinical Implications, and a Research Agenda Jennifer J. Brout 1, Miren Edelstein 1,2, Mercede Erfanian 1,3, Michael Mannino 4, Lucy J. Miller 1,5, Romke Rouw 6, Sukhbinder Kumar 1,7 and M. Zachary Rosenthal 1,8,9* 1 International Misophonia Research Network, New York, NY, United States, 2 Department of Psychology, Center for Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States, 3 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, 4 Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, United States, 5 Department of Psychology, Brain and Cognition, Amsterdam University, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 6 Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 7 Auditory Group, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle, United Kingdom, 8 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, United States, 9 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States Misophonia is a neurobehavioral syndrome phenotypically characterized by heightened autonomic nervous system arousal and negative emotional reactivity (e. g., irritation, anger, anxiety) in response to a decreased tolerance for specific sounds. The aims of Edited by: this review are to (a) characterize the current state of the field of research on misophonia, Isabelle Peretz, Université de Montréal, Canada (b) highlight what can be inferred from the small research literature to inform treatment Reviewed by: of individuals with misophonia, and (c) outline an agenda for research on this topic. -
Anxiety Disorders
June 2017 Effects of Marijuana on Mental Health: Anxiety Disorders Susan A. Stoner, PhD, Research Consultant Highlights Many people report using marijuana to cope with anxiety, especially those with social anxiety disorder. Considering THC Locked appears vs. Unlocked to decrease Treatment anxiety Facilities at lower doses and increase anxiety at higher doses. CBD appears to decrease anxiety at all doses that have been tested. There are individual differences in responses to marijuana that are affected by a variety of factors, though tolerance develops over a short period of time with regular use. Using marijuana to cope with anxiety may offer some short-term benefit, but well-controlled studies indicate that use of marijuana is associated with increased likelihood of substance use disorders. Introduction Marijuana is the most commonly used drug of abuse in the United States.1 As found in the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 22.2 million people aged 12 and older had used marijuana in the past month.1 Research suggests that marijuana use has increased over the past decade2-4 as perceptions of risk of harm from using marijuana among adults in the general population have steadily declined.4 As of June 2017, 26 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws that have legalized marijuana use in some form, and 3 additional states have recently passed measures permitting use of medical marijuana.5 Mental health conditions figure prominently among the reasons given for medical marijuana use6, yet there is a dearth of rigorous, experimentally controlled studies examining the effects of marijuana on mental health conditions.7 This research brief will summarize what is known about the effects of marijuana on anxiety disorders. -
The Kiki-Bouba Paradigm : Where Senses Meet and Greet
240 Invited Review Article The Kiki-Bouba paradigm : where senses meet and greet Aditya Shukla Cognitive Psychologist, The OWL, Pune. E-mail – [email protected] ABSTRACT Humans have the ability to think in abstract ways. Experiments over the last 90 years have shown that stimuli from the external world can be evaluated on an abstract spectrum with ‘Kiki’ on one end and ‘Bouba’ on the other. People are in concordance with each other with respect to calling a jagged-edgy- sharp bordered two dimensional shape ‘Kiki’ and a curvy-smooth-round two dimensional shape ‘Bouba’.. The proclivity of this correspondence is ubiquitous. Moreover, the Kiki-Bouba phenomenon seems to represent a non-arbitrary abstract connection between 2 or more stimuli. Studies have shown that cross- modal associations between and withinaudioception, opthalmoception, tactioception and gustatoception can be demonstrated by using Kiki-Bouba as a cognitive ‘convergence point’. This review includes a critical assessment of the methods, findings, limitations, plausible explanations and future directions involving the Kiki-Bouba effect. Applications include creatingtreatments and training methods to compensate for poor abstract thinking abilities caused by disorders like schizophrenia and autism, for example. Continuing research in this area would help building a universal model of consciousness that fully incorporates cross-sensory perception at the biological and cognitive levels. Key words:Kiki-Bouba, crossmodal correspondence, multisensory perception, abstraction, ideasthesia, symbolism, schizophrenia, autism. (Paper received – 1st September 2016, Review completed – 10th September 2016, Accepted – 12th September 2016) INTRODUCTION We often describe objects in the environment in complex ways. These descriptions contain analogies, metaphors, emotional effect and structural and functional details about the objects.