Implicit interactions between number and space in digit-color synesthesia

Abstract

In digit-color synesthesia, a variant of grapheme-color synesthesia, digits trigger an additional color percept. Recent work on number processing in synesthesia suggests that colors can implicitly elicit numerical representations in digit-color synesthetes implying that synesthesia is bidirectional. Furthermore, morphometric investigations revealed structural differences in the parietal cortex of grapheme-color synesthetes, i.e., in the brain region where interactions between number and space occur in non-synesthetic subjects. Based upon these previous findings, we here examined whether implicitly evoked numerical representations interact with spatial representations in synesthesia in such a way that even a non-numerical, visuo-spatial task (here: line bisection) is modulated, i.e., whether synesthetes exhibit a systematic bisection bias for colored lines.Thirteen digit-color synesthetes were asked to bisect two sets of lines which were colored in their individual synesthetic colors associated with a small or a large digit, respectively. For all colored line stimuli combined, digit-color synesthetes showed – like control subjects (n = 13, matched for age, gender, IQ and handedness) – a pseudo-neglect when bisecting colored lines. Measuring the color-induced change of the bisection bias (i.e., comparing the biases when bisecting lines colored according to a small number vs those lines corresponding to a large number) revealed that only digit-color synesthetes were significantly influenced by line color.The results provide further evidence for the bidirectional nature of synesthesia and support the concept of a mental number line. In addition, they extend previous reports on bidirectionality in synesthesia by showing that even non-numerical, visuo-spatial performance can be modulated by implicit bidirectional processes.