David BrangAnna Krasno

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• David Brang Anna Krasno
• Lee Edwards Amanda Gorlick
• Cogs 175
• 6/2/06

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Outline

• 1. Lee - Synesthesia Primer
• What it is, relation to consciousness
• 2. David
• Video, demographics, evidence, theories
• 3. Anna
• Acquired synesthesia, developmental vs. acquired
• 4. Amanda
• Conscious understanding - closing remarks

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What is Synesthesia?

• Perceptual phenomenon
• Grapheme Color
• Inducer and concurrent
• Developmental synesthetes
• No Comorbidity with mental illness

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Correlates to Consciousness

• Can be thought of as an altered state
• The world is perceived differently, relative to
  non-synesthetes
• Cross modal integration
• Relevance

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Demographics

• The majority of synesthetes report the experience
  since childhood
• Occurs in at least 1/2000 individuals
• More common in children than adults
• More common in women
• Has a genetic basis to it
• Theorized 50 separate forms of synesthesia

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Evidence as a Phenomenon

• Test/retest reliability
• Similar reports across cultures and time
• PET studies
• fMRI studies
• Synesthetic Stroop Test

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Theories

• Learned association
• Awareness
• Neural Connectivity
• Neonatal
• Cross-wiring
• Disinhibited feedback
• Gamma-Binding

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Acquired

• Brain damage
• Retinitis pigmentosa
• Sensory deafferentation
• Drugs
• Meditation

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Developmental vs. Acquired
Devlopmental Acquired
Involuntary Transient experience
Synthetic Perception and Conception Perception only
Consistent across lifetime Not verifiable over time
Part of normal consciousness Not brought into self-awareness
Often unreported Novelty of event communicated
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Pop-out Effects
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Towards a Conscious Understanding

• Booba and kiki
• Conceptual rightness
• Synesthesia is present and suppressed in normal
  individuals, but has the potential to rise to
  consciousness
• Only consistently part of consciousness in
  developmental synesthetes

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Conclusion

• Altered state is unique to the baseline state of
  each individual
• Umbrella including autism and other developmental
  disorders
• Personal reality

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References

• Baron-Cohen, Simon. (1996) Is there a normal
  phase of synesthesia in development? Psyche,
  2(27)
• Calkins, M.W. (1893). A statistical study of
  pseudo-chromesthesia and of mental-forms.
  American Journal of Psychology, 5, 439-66.
• Cytowic, R.E. (1989). Synesthesia A Union of
  the Senses. Springer Verlag.
• Galton, F. (1880). Visualized numerals. Nature,
  21 252-256.
• Grossenbacher, P.G. Lovelace, C.T. (2001).
  Mechanisms of synesthesia cognitive and
  physiological constraints. TRENDS in Cognitive
  Sciences, 5 36-41.
• Hubbard, Edward M. and V.S. Ramachandran. (2005)
  Neurocognitive Mechanisms of
• Synesthesia. Neuron, 48509-520.
• Lynn C. Robertson Noam Sagiv (Eds).
  Synesthesia Perspectives from Cognitive
  Neuroscience. New York Oxford University Press,
  2005.
• Maurer, D. et al., (1999). Cross-modal transfer
  of shape is difficult to demonstrate in
  one-month-olds. Child Development, 70 (5),
  1047-57.

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References

• Nunn, J.A. et al., (2002). Functional magnetic
  resonance imaging of synesthesia activation of
  V4/V8 by spoken words. Nature Neuroscience, 5
  371-375.
• Paulesu, E. et al. (1995). The Physiology of
  Coloured Hearing A PET activation study of
  colour-word synaesthesia. Brain, 118, 661-676.
• Ramachandran, V.S. and Hubbard, E.M. (2003).
  Hearing colors, tasting shapes. Scientific
  American. May 2003, 53-59.
• Ramachandran, V.S. Hubbard, E.M. (2000).
  Psychophysical investigations into the neural
  basis of synaesthesis. The Royal Society, 268
  979-983.
• Rich, A.N, Bradshaw, J.L., J.B. Mattingley.
  (2004). A Systematic, largescale study of
  synesthesia Implications for the role of early
  experience in lexical-colour associations.
  Cognition. 20(11) 1-32.
• Snyder, S.H. (1986). Drugs and the Brain. New
  York Scientific American Library.
• Van Leeuwen, T. (2004) The neural basis of
  synesthesia. lthttp//bar.psych.ubc.ca/PDF/VanLeeu
  wen04_synpaper.pdfgt May 28, 2006.
• Walsh, R. (2005). Can synesthesia be
  cultivated? Indications from surveys of
  meditators. Journal of Consciousness Studies,
  12, 5-17.