Abstract
People with synaesthesia have additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli. Synaesthesia therefore offers a unique window into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying conscious perception. A long-standing question in synaesthesia research is whether it is possible to artificially induce non-synaesthetic individuals to have synaesthesia-like experiences. Although synaesthesia is widely considered a congenital condition, increasing evidence points to the potential of a variety of approaches to induce synaesthesia-like experiences, even in adulthood. Here, we summarize a range of methods for artificially inducing synaesthesia-like experiences, comparing the resulting experiences to the key hallmarks of natural synaesthesia which include consistency, automaticity and a lack of ‘perceptual presence’. We conclude that a number of aspects of synaesthesia can be artificially induced in non-synaesthetes. These data suggest the involvement of developmental and/or learning components in the acquisition of synaesthesia, and they extend previous reports of perceptual plasticity leading to dramatic changes in perceptual phenomenology in adults.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
Highlights
Synaesthesia is defined by the presence of additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli [1]
We have focused on three hallmarks of natural synaesthesia: consistency, automaticity and perceptual presence
It is not surprising that the results of cognitive-perceptual training displayed a greater number of the hallmarks of natural synaesthesia compared to other induction methods, as the extensive associative learning performed by participants in both studies may more closely resemble the likely developmental trajectory of natural synaesthesia [7,11]
Summary
Synaesthesia is defined by the presence of additional perceptual experiences, which are automatically and consistently triggered by specific inducing stimuli [1]. Synaesthesia was originally considered a condition one was born with [4], or at least one that was fixed from early childhood [5,6], increasing evidence points to the possibility of inducing hallmarks of synaesthetic experience in adulthood, through a variety of methods including training, hypnosis and various other means [7,8,9,10,11,12] This emerging research sheds new light on the potential plasticity of the adult brain to develop strikingly novel perceptual phenomenology. Induction research, reviewing examples of artificially induced synaesthesia and examining its implications for learning and perceptual plasticity
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More From: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
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