Cognitive psychological study on synesthetic perception and cross-modal correspondence as integrated perception

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26285164
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Yokosawa Kazuhiko 東京大学, 大学院人文社会系研究科(文学部), 教授 (20311649)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): ASANO Michiko 立教大学, 現代心理学部, 准教授 (40553607)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 共感覚 / 情報統合 / 感覚間相互作用 / 統合的認知 / 認知心理学 / 高次視覚 / 感覚間協応

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Grapheme-color synesthesia is a phenomenon in which viewing a grapheme elicits an additional and consistent sensation of color. First, using a five-language dataset, we show that only an ordinal explanation makes consistent predictions across all five languages, suggesting that the English “A” is red because the first grapheme of a synesthete’s alphabet tends to be associated with red. Second, non-synesthetes tended to associate different graphemes that shared sounds and/or meanings with the same colors, which was analogous to the findings in synesthetes. These results support the view that grapheme-color synesthesia might have its origins in cross-modal association processes that are shared with the general population. Third, we investigated cultural differences between U.S. and Japanese color preferences. Japanese and U.S. color preferences have both similarities and differences. Culturally specific personal experiences during one’s lifetime influence color preferences.

Free Research Field

実験心理学