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Synesthesia

Synesthesia . Functional and Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Activation of V4/V8. J.A. Nunn, L.J. Gregory, M. Brammer , S.C.R. Williams, D.M. Parslow , M.J. Morgan, R.G. Morris, E.T. Bullmore , S. Baron-Cohen, & J.A. Gray. By Cecylia Witkowski. What is Synesthesia? .

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Synesthesia

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  1. Synesthesia Functional and Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Activation of V4/V8 J.A. Nunn, L.J. Gregory, M. Brammer, S.C.R. Williams, D.M. Parslow, M.J. Morgan, R.G. Morris, E.T. Bullmore, S. Baron-Cohen, & J.A. Gray By Cecylia Witkowski

  2. What is Synesthesia? • Synesthesia occurs when one sensory modality triggers another • A common synonym for Synesthesia is “Coloured Hearing”

  3. Picture the number two in your mind 2how most people see the number 2 2how people with synesthesia see it

  4. The Experiments • Three experiments conducted • Experiment 1 • 30 blocks of single spoken words (abstract and concrete) were alternated with single pure tones over a course of 5 min • Synesthetes were asked to describe the colour they experienced after each word • This data was used for experiment 3

  5. The Experiments • Experiment 2 • This was a control to see whether the presentation of words along with images of colour (Mondrians) would activate the same brain areas as synesthetes

  6. The Experiments • Experiment 3 • Non-synesthetes would learn the word-colour combinations that synesthetes described • They were required to predict and imagine the colours associated with the words • Also required to re-test to obtain 100% accuracy

  7. The Results • Both the synesthetes and non-synesthetes displayed activation in all brain regions EXCEPT for the V4/V8 region • V4/V8 regions are gathered to be responsible for coloured vision • Even in Experiment 3, V4/V8 regions in non-synesthetes were not activated

  8. fMRI Results

  9. Discussion • V4/V8 regions are still under much investigation for their absolute function and their relation to synesthesia • Despite training non-synesthetes, there was still no activation of V4/V8 regions • V4/V8 regions specific only to synesthetes?

  10. Discussion • Due to activation, synesthetic colour experience is that of colour perception rather than imagery • There was no left V4/V8 activation in response to colours • Competition between normal colour perception and synesthetic perception

  11. Thoughts • Very well laid out • Had methodical approach to riddle out whether just association can procure ‘synesthesia-like’ effects • Interesting results • Synesthetes had regions activated that don’t in normal people • Usage of fMRI and PET scans to obtain accurate results

  12. Strengths & Limitations • Effectively used controls to determine synesthete and non-synesthete activations • Limited number of participants • 13 synesthetes • 27 controls • All female

  13. Further Research • More participants • Variation in gender (not just females) • Vary in testing such that controls would see a word in colour, then repeated again without colour and test to see whether association will occur

  14. Questions

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