The genetics of colored sequence synesthesia: Suggestive evidence of linkage to 16q and genetic heterogeneity for the condition

Tomson, Steffie; Avidan, Nili; Lee, Kwanghyuk; Sarma, Anand K.; Tushe, Rejnal; Milewicz, Dianna M.; Bray, Molly S.; Leal, Suzanne M.; Eagleman, David M.

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.03.071

Cited by 81 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…grapheme and colour, or sound and shape) are found in only about 2-4% of the population (Simner et al, 2006;Ward, 2013). The low prevalence of cases is consistent with suggestions that synaesthesia represents an aberrant genotype (Brang, Williams, & Ramachandran, 2012;Tomson et al, 2011), which may result in unusual patterns of neural crosswiring or cross-activation between adjacent cortical regions (Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001;Rouw & Scholte, 2007). However, many researchers have argued that some forms of synaesthesia might be grounded on normal mechanisms involved in forming and reinforcing associations between different modalities and sensory dimensions (Brang, Williams, & Ramachandran, 2012;Cohen Kadosh, Henik, Catena, Walsh, & Fuentes, 2009;Cytowic, 2003;Grossenbacher & Lovelace, 2001; Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001;Ward, Huckstep, & Tsakanikos, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…In terms of brain mechanisms, it is currently debated to what extent synaesthesias reflect genotypically unusual cross-wiring between sensory areas (Brang et al, 2012;Tomson et al, 2011), versus physiological disinhibition of normally-occurring connections (Cohen Kadosh et al, 2009;Cohen Kadosh & Walsh, 2006;Grossenbacher & Lovelace, 2001;Neufeld et al, 2012). This debate might be informed by whether the behavioural measures have a discontinuous or continuous distribution (Cohen Kadosh, 2013;Deroy & Spence, 2015;Martino & Marks, 2001;Simner, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A deafening flash! Visual interference of auditory signal detection

Fassnidge

Marcotti

Freeman

2017

Consciousness and Cognition

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A deafening flash! Visual interference of auditory signal detection

Fassnidge

Marcotti

Freeman

2017

Consciousness and Cognition

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“…In the vernacular of synaesthesia research, an "inducer" (e.g., letter) triggers a synaesthetic "concurrent" (e.g., colour). The condition has a genetic basis (Asher et al, 2009;Tomson et al, 2011) and gives rise to anatomical differences including altered white-matter coherence (e.g., Rouw & Scholte, 2007) and grey matter volume (Weiss & Fink, 2009). Although synaesthetes' experiences are superficially idiosyncratic (e.g., the letter A might be red for one synaesthete but blue for another), underlying patterns exist in the associations between the inducer and concurrent, and these patterns are often also found in nonsynaesthetes' intuitive cross-modal associations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound symbolism in synesthesia: Evidence from a lexical–gustatory synesthete

Bankieris¹,

Simner²

2013

Neurocase

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Article (Accepted Version) http://sro.sussex.ac.uk Bankieris, Kaitlyn and Simner, Julia (2013) Sound symbolism in synesthesia: evidence from a lexical-gustatory synesthete. Neurocase, 20 (6). pp. 640-651. ISSN 1355-4794 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/57043/ 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. AbstractSynaesthesia is a condition in which perceptual or cognitive stimuli (e.g., a written letter) trigger atypical additional percepts (e.g., the colour yellow). Although these cross-modal pairings appear idiosyncratic in that they superficially differ from synaesthete to synaesthete, underlying patterns do exist and these can, in some circumstances, reflect the cross-modal intuitions of nonsynaesthetes (e.g., higher pitch sounds tend to be 'seen' in lighter colours by synaesthetes, and are also paired to lighter colours by nonsynaesthetes in cross-modal matching tasks). We recently showed that grapheme-colour synaesthetes are more sensitive to sound symbolism (i.e., crossmodal sound-meaning correspondences) in natural language compared to nonsynaesthetes (Bankieris & Simner, 2012). Accordingly, we hypothesize that sound symbolism may be a guiding force in synaesthesia, to dictate what types of synaesthetic experiences are triggered by words. We tested this hypothesis by examining the cross-modal mappings of lexical-gustatory synaesthete, JIW, for whom words trigger flavour experiences. We show that certain phonological features (e.g., front vowels) systematically trigger particular categories of taste (e.g., bitter) in his synaesthesia. Some of these associations agree with sound symbolic patterns in natural language.

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“…In these terms, OLP could be categorised as a form of developmental synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is a genetically linked condition (Asher et al, 2009;Tomson et al, 2011) in which every-day stimuli trigger unusual secondary asso iatio s. A het pal a ifestatio s of s aesthesia i lude ases he e t o se ses a e e ged in some way, such as when music triggers visual perceptions of colour (e.g., Ward, Huckstep & Tsakanikos, 2006) or where tastes trigger tactile sensations of shape (e.g., Cytowic, 1993). However, the neural conditions giving rise to synaesthesia (e.g., atypical white-matter coherence; see below)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social responsiveness to inanimate entities: Altered white matter in a ‘social synaesthesia’

et al. 2016

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, M (2016) Social responsiveness to inanimate entities: altered white matter in a 'social synaesthesia '. Neuropsychologia, This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/64745/ 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. 1 Social responsiveness to inanimate entities:Alte ed hite atte i a so ial s aesthesia ABSTRACTJudgments about personalities and social traits can be made by relatively brief exposure to animate living things. Here we show that unusual architecture in the microstructure of the human brain is related to atypical mental projections of personality and social structure onto things that are neither living nor animate. Our participants experience automatic, life-long and consistent crossmodal associations between language sequences (e.g., letters, numbers and days) and complex personifications (e.g., A is a businessman; 7 a good-atu ed o a . Pa ti ipa ts ith this O di al Li guisti Pe so ifi atio "i e & Hu a d, hi h e des i e he e as a fo of so ial synaesthesia, showed lower fractional anisotropy (FA) values in five clusters at whole-brain significance, compared with non-synaesthetes (in the pre-postcentral gyrus/ dorsal corticospinal tract, left superior corona radiata, and the genu, body and left side of the corpus callosum). We found no regions of the brain with increased FA in synaesthetes. A number of these regions with reduced FA play a role in social responsiveness, and our study is the first to show that unusual differences in white matter microstructure in these regions is associated with compelling feelings of social cohesion and personality towards non-animate entities. We show too that altered patterns of connectivity known to t pif s aesthesia a e ot li ited to a ia ts i ol i g a e gi g of the se ses , ut also e te d to 2 what might be thought of as a cogno-social variant of synaesthesia, linking language and personality attributes in this surprising way.

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The genetics of colored sequence synesthesia: Suggestive evidence of linkage to 16q and genetic heterogeneity for the condition

Cited by 81 publications

References 45 publications

A deafening flash! Visual interference of auditory signal detection

A deafening flash! Visual interference of auditory signal detection

Sound symbolism in synesthesia: Evidence from a lexical–gustatory synesthete

Social responsiveness to inanimate entities: Altered white matter in a ‘social synaesthesia’

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