Contribution of synaesthetic tendencies to semantic understanding of Chinese characters and mathematics

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K14379
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 10020:Educational psychology-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University (2023); The University of Tokyo (2019, 2021-2022)
• Principal Investigator: Eiko Matsuda 早稲田大学, データ科学センター, 講師(任期付) (40761630)
• Project Period (FY): 2021-02-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 共感覚 / 発達 / 学習 / 漢字 / 算数 / 数学 / 擬人化

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Synesthetic tendencies to assign colours and personalities to letters and numbers, such as perceiving the letter a as red or the number 3 as a girl, are known to be widespread in general, but their formation process and functional aspects have remained unclear. The present study therefore explored the relationship between synaesthetic tendencies and learning and development.
<Experiment 1> investigated the relationship between kanji reading and grapheme-colour association in 184 primary school children and 200 adults. The results showed no significant changes in grapheme-color association regardless of age or learning progress. <Experiment 2> investigated 179 mathematicians and 179 control participants, and found that mathematicians were particularly likely to personalize numbers.

Free Research Field

発達心理学、身体性認知科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

この研究では、「アルファベットaが赤色に感じる」「数字の3が女の子だと感じる」など、文字に対して色や擬人的な印象を感じる共感覚的傾向と呼ばれる現象について、年齢とともに変化するのか、機能はあるのかについて調べました。その結果、数学者は数を擬人化する傾向があること、文字に色を割り当てる傾向は年齢を通して変わらないことが明らかになりました。今後、共感覚的傾向を生かした学習方法の提案が期待されます。