Exploring the relationship between grapheme colour-picking consistency and mental imagery.

Previous research has indicated a potential link between mental imagery and synaesthesia. However, these findings are mainly based on imagery self-report measures and recruitment of self-selected synaesthetes. To avoid issues of self-selection and demand effects, we recruited participants from the general population, rather than synaesthetes specifically, and used colour-picking consistency tests for letters and numbers to assess a 'synaesthete-like' experience.

Summation of visual attributes in auditory-visual crossmodal correspondences.

Crossmodal correspondences are a feature of human perception in which two or more sensory dimensions are linked together; for example, high-pitched noises may be more readily linked with small than with large objects. However, no study has yet systematically examined the interaction between different visual-auditory crossmodal correspondences. We investigated how the visual dimensions of luminance, saturation, size, and vertical position can influence decisions when matching particular visual stimuli with high-pitched or low-pitched auditory stimuli.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Individual Differences in Multisensory Perception: an Overview.

The world is full of objects that can be perceived through multiple different senses to create an integrated understanding of our environment. Since each of us has different biological and psychological characteristics, different people may perceive the world in quite different ways. However, the questions of how and why our multisensory perceptions differ have not been explored in any great depth.

Beyond visual imagery: how modality-specific is enhanced mental imagery in synesthesia?

Synesthesia based in visual modalities has been associated with reports of vivid visual imagery. We extend this finding to consider whether other forms of synesthesia are also associated with enhanced imagery, and whether this enhancement reflects the modality of synesthesia. We used self-report imagery measures across multiple sensory modalities, comparing synesthetes' responses (with a variety of forms of synesthesia) to those of non-synesthete matched controls.

Comparing implicit and synaesthetic number-space associations: Visuospatial and verbal spatial-numerical associations of response codes.

In the theory of the mental number line, number, and space are implicitly associated, giving rise to the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect, in which smaller numbers are more readily associated with the left side of space and larger numbers with the right, during a parity judgement task. Others, however, have argued that the SNARC effect is flexible and better explained by verbal rather than spatial associations. A few single-case studies on the SNARC effect have tested number-space synaesthetes, who make explicit associations between number and space.

Visual experience facilitates allocentric spatial representation.

Representing the position of the objects independently from our own position is a fundamental cognitive ability. Here we investigated whether this ability depends on visual experience. Congenitally blind, late blind and blindfolded sighted participants haptically learnt a room-sized regularly shaped array of objects, and their spatial memory was tested to determine which spatial reference frame was used.

A foundation for savantism? Visuo-spatial synaesthetes present with cognitive benefits.

Individuals with 'time-space' synaesthesia have conscious awareness of mappings between time and space (e.g., they may see months arranged in an ellipse, or years as columns or spirals).

Mental imagery and synaesthesia: Is synaesthesia from internally-generated stimuli possible?

Previous studies provide empirical support for the reported colour experience in grapheme-colour synaesthesia by measuring the synaesthetic experience from an externally presented grapheme. The current study explored the synaesthetic experience resulting from a visual mental image of a grapheme. Grapheme-colour synaesthetes (N=6) and matched controls (N=10 per synaesthete) completed a visual mental imagery task that involved visualising a letter and making a size-based decision about it.

Number synaesthesia: when hearing "four plus five" looks like gold.

Whilst lexical-colour synaesthesia has been widely studied, the number-colour pairing has received relatively less attention. Since one very strong variable is the structure and "ordinality" within a set of inducers (e.g.