Better together? The cognitive advantages of synaesthesia for time, numbers, and space

Hale, J. R.; Thompson, Jacqueline; Morgan, Helen M.; Cappelletti, Marinella; Kadosh, Roi Cohen

doi:10.1080/02643294.2014.967759

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 68 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…() found a relationship between the benefit in convergent creativity and the number of types of synaesthesia experienced. Differences in types of synaesthesia as a source of different effects would be in line with findings by Hale, Thompson, Morgan, Cappelletti, and Kadosh (), Lunke and Meier (), Meier and Rothen (2013a), Simner et al . (), Ward, Hovard, Jones, and Rothen () and Ward et al .…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

Lunke

Meier

2018

British J of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aim of the present study was to test the relationship between different types of synaesthesia and their involvement in art, creative, and visual abilities. We tested 20 grapheme‐colour, 18 sound‐colour, 19 grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour, 20 sequence‐space synaesthetes, and the same number of controls matched by age, gender, and education. We assessed the number of artistic professions, involvement in art, and the performance in psychometric tests of divergent and convergent creativity, as well as visual and visuo‐spatial abilities. Results show a higher prevalence of artists among synaesthetes, especially sound‐colour synaesthetes. Sound‐colour synaesthetes also showed a higher involvement in artistic activities overall while sequence‐space synaesthetes showed higher involvement in visual art. Only grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour synaesthetes showed significantly higher divergent creativity compared to matched controls. Additionally, overall, synaesthetes scored higher in visuo‐spatial abilities (i.e., mental rotation). For synaesthetes and controls, visuo‐spatial abilities correlated with divergent creativity. We discuss that synaesthetes’ higher involvement in art is not necessarily reflected in their basic creative abilities.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

Lunke

Meier

2018

British J of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These findings imply that synesthesia is accompanied by a general processing benefit in the domain of the synesthetic concurrent experience, outside of the synesthetic experience itself (Banissy et al, 2009). As mentioned before, sequence-space synesthetes have already shown improved processing ability in the domain of their synesthetic concurrent experience (i.e., space; Hale et al, 2014). Sequence-space synesthetes may thus have a general spatial advantage because of their enhanced sensitivity to spatial relations, which may enhance spatial navigation performance.…”

Section: Sequence-space Synesthesia and Spatial Navigationsupporting

confidence: 51%

“…This link to increased spatial processing has also been demonstrated by means of a questionnaire about cognitive styles (Mealor, Simner, Rothen, Carmichael, & Ward, 2016). Moreover, the study by Hale et al (2014) suggested a general difference in working memory between sequence-space synesthetes and non-synesthetes since synesthetes demonstrated higher visuospatial working memory accuracy compared to controls.…”

Section: Cognitive Benefits and Costs Of Sequence-space Synesthesiamentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Sequencespace synesthetes were also found to have an advantage in spatial processing ability in the domain of their synesthetic concurrent experience (i.e., space). This was demonstrated with a task comprising spatial stimuli (i.e., several circles differing in size), where participants were required to make judgements about the overlapping order (i.e., leftmost circle on the bottom and rightmost on the top, or the other way around; Hale, Thompson, Morgan, Cappelletti, & Cohen Kadosh, 2014). This link to increased spatial processing has also been demonstrated by means of a questionnaire about cognitive styles (Mealor, Simner, Rothen, Carmichael, & Ward, 2016).…”

Section: Cognitive Benefits and Costs Of Sequence-space Synesthesiamentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Furthermore, it has been shown that synesthetes with number forms are slower in doing simple calculations (Ward, Sagiv, & Butterworth, 2009). This could perhaps be the case because they are relying on their visuospatial forms when solving these arithmetic problems instead of using rote retrieval (i.e., a memorization strategy based on repetition), which is more optimal in this case (Hale et al, 2014).…”

Section: Cognitive Benefits and Costs Of Sequence-space Synesthesiamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Enhanced spatial navigation skills in sequence-space synesthetes

Petersen

Altgassen

Lier

et al. 2020

Cortex

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Individuals with sequence-space synesthesia (SSS) perceive sequences like months, days and numbers in certain spatial arrangements. Several cognitive benefits have been associated with SSS, such as enhanced mental rotation, more vivid visual imagery and an advantage in spatial processing. The current study aimed to further investigate these cognitive benefits, focusing on spatial navigation skills, to explore if their enhanced sensitivity to spatial relations is reflected in enhanced navigational performance. Synesthetes were distinguished from controls by means of a questionnaire, a consistency test and drawings. A virtual Morris Water Maze (MWM) task with two allocentric and two egocentric navigation conditions was used to assess spatial navigation abilities. For the allocentric tasks, participants had to use object cues to find a hidden platform and for the egocentric tasks, they had to use their own position as a reference. Results showed that synesthetes performed significantly better compared to controls on the allocentric and egocentric tasks that reflected real life situations more accurately. However, this significant result was only found for the time taken to find the platform and not for the length of the path that was taken. In exploratory analyses, no significant relations were found between task performance and the specific features of the manifestation of each individual's synesthesia. Our hypothesis that synesthetes with the ability to mentally rotate their spatial arrangements would perform better on the allocentric task was not confirmed. Results add to the growing body of literature concerning the cognitive benefits of SSS and are consistent with the possibility that enhanced spatial navigation skills emerge from generally enhanced visuospatial abilities in SSS.

show abstract

Die Kunst Der Sinne – Die Sinne Der Kunst.

Gsöllpointner

2015

Exploring Cybernetics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Better together? The cognitive advantages of synaesthesia for time, numbers, and space

Cited by 11 publications

References 68 publications

Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

Enhanced spatial navigation skills in sequence-space synesthetes

Die Kunst Der Sinne – Die Sinne Der Kunst.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About