Gray Bananas and a Red Letter A - From Synesthetic Sensation to Memory Colors

Overview

Journal Iperception

Date 2018 Jun 15

PMID 29899968

Citations 3

Authors

Franziska Weiss

Mark W Greenlee

Gregor Volberg

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a condition in which objectively achromatic graphemes induce concurrent color experiences. While it was long thought that the colors emerge during perception, there is growing support for the view that colors are integral to synesthetes' cognitive representations of graphemes. In this work, we review evidence for two opposing theories positing either a perceptual or cognitive origin of concurrent colors: the cross-activation theory and the conceptual-mediation model. The review covers results on inducer and concurrent color processing as well as findings concerning the brain structure and grapheme-color mappings in synesthetes and trained mappings in nonsynesthetes. The results support different aspects of both theories. Finally, we discuss how research on memory colors could provide a new perspective in the debate about the level of processing at which the synesthetic colors occur.

Citing Articles

Categorical consistency facilitates implicit learning of color-number associations.

Retter T, Erassmy L, Schiltz C PLoS One. 2023; 18(7):e0288224.

PMID: 37428745 PMC: 10332609. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288224.

An Introduction to the Special Issue "Seeing Colors".

Greenlee M, Werner J, Wagner C Iperception. 2018; 9(5):2041669518797392.

PMID: 30202511 PMC: 6125853. DOI: 10.1177/2041669518797392.

Gray Bananas and a Red Letter A - From Synesthetic Sensation to Memory Colors.

Weiss F, Greenlee M, Volberg G Iperception. 2018; 9(3):2041669518777515.

PMID: 29899968 PMC: 5985554. DOI: 10.1177/2041669518777515.

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