Uk Synaesthesia AssociationNEWSLETTER

SYNAESTHESIA AND LEARNINGJulian Asher

All images in this newsletter are the copyright of the artists. Their reproduction is not permitted without prior written consent

DOES SYNAESTHESIAAFFECT YOUR ABILITY TO LEARN?Liz Davies I'm sure you will get some similar responses, but I think synaesthesia helpedme learn to spell as a child - I always found it very easy to remember how tospell even difficult words, by the patterns the colours made. When a wordwas spelt wrong, I could immediately tell because a colour stood out, or'didn't go' with the rest of the word. I don't know if I can still attribute it tosynaesthesia as I tend to suppress the colours these days, but I can still spota spelling error a mile off, which has earned me the additional role as proof-reader at work!

Amy WhitehouseI have the most common type of synaesthesia; grapheme synaesthesia,which seems to be stronger towards numbers rather than letters. I amcurrently studying for my A levels in mathematics, psychology and religiousstudies. Maths has always been a favourite of mine, I have spent most of myschool life irritating the teachers by correcting them in class, flying ahead onthe class arithmetic exercises and I am also constantly used as the humancalculator round home. Art has always been a forte in my life along sidemathematics, annually I won the primary school art prize and continued thesubject right through GCSE where I scored an impressive 98% in the examsection. Even though I do not continue the subject today (it is an extremelystressful subject to take for A level) I have taken part in life drawing classeson a weekly basis. I am not claiming in any of this I am AMAZING atmathematics and art just that through assessment throughout the years Ihave been marked as above average in both the subjects and this doesappear to be concordant with grapheme synaesthesia, whether it hasaffected my ability to learn in the sense of aiding my ability in art and mathsor vice versa I do not know but there definitely seems to be a link there.

Charlotte HansonI enjoyed school work and found it relatively easy. In particular, I was toldthat I had a flare for language, and in fact am now a science writer. I certainlydo not feel that my synaesthesia has ever held me back; on the contrary, Ithink it enhanced the learning experience, making it more interesting andenjoyable. For example, I found I was much quicker at solving problems inA-level maths lessons, because I could 'see' the equation in my head anddidn't need to write it down to work out the answer.

I think there may be a danger in using synaesthesia as a reason or anexcuse for everything - it is only one aspect of life. For me, the synaestheticresponse is automatic and for the most part unconscious, working away inthe background and making life just a little bit more colourful. Perhaps tryingto analyse one's synaesthesia too much, or becoming too aware of it, is whatleads to difficulties.

DOES SYNESTHESIA AFFECTLEARNING IN PRIMARYSCHOOL CHILDREN?

WELCOMEDear Readers,

Welcome to a slightly late Autumn/Winter issue of the UKSA newsletter.

In this edition we are looking atSynaesthesia and learning. On this page Julian Asher introduces us to thetopic and discusses some of the issuesinvolved. Inside, David Grant writesabout his study on synaeasthesia’sconnection to learning disabilities, and on the back page we hear some of your thoughts, as well as Anne Wight’sexperience as a mother of twosynaesthetic children.

If you are interested in reading further on this topic, look out for Julia Simner’sarticle ‘How many children read incolour?’ which should be beingpublished soon.

Also in this issue, the UKSA President,James Wannerton, tells us about the2008 Conference and the latest newsfrom the committee. As he writes inside,we are looking for people to help out onthe committee, on the website and onthe newsletter. If you are interested inbeing involved in any way, please contactus at the usual address.

As always I hope you enjoy reading the newsletter!

Best wishes,

Victoria Edmonds, Editor

UK Synaesthesia Association • PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard LU7 0WP • uksynaesthesia @hotmail.com

NEXT ISSUE The next issue is a chance for you to discuss anyarea of synaesthesia that interests you. Please send your articles,book reviews, letters and/or pictures to us at: UKSA, PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 0WP or email:Newsletter.UKSA@hotmail.co.uk

Please submit your contributions by 31st December 2007 if for inclusion in the next issue.

Anne WightAs the mum of two young synesthetes, my answer to this question is anunequivocal “yes”. The hard part is in stating exactly how it affects learningin synesthetic children. This is because the way in which it affects a child’slearning depends on the nature and degree of the child’s synestheticexperience, and on how much he is able either to make use of or, in somecases, to ignore his synesthesia and direct his focus elsewhere. This willdepend on the child’s maturity and on the degree to which he hasdeveloped ways of working around the condition when necessary.

For example, my son, James (age 12), has multiple forms of synesthesia,including grapheme-colour, and music-colour, which are seen “in his mind’seye”. He sees “all the colours of all the letters in the word”. When he wasseven, his teacher reported that he was strongest in spelling in his class.He was also reading just before his 3rd birthday. James’ synesthesia hasnever been a problem, except when there was a music lesson going on inthe next room during a test. When this happened, he said he could onlysee “the blue of the saxaphone next door”. His teacher now allows him tosit his tests in silence.

My daughter, Jenny (age 9), has moving, projected and opaque colourswhich block out part of her visual field. She also has several types ofsynesthesia, including grapheme-colour, music-colour, and sound-colour.When she was six, she told her teacher that she was moving her head “to tryto see round the colours” and see the board. The teacher told her to stopbeing silly. Jenny thought that something was wrong with her, and theschool was concerned because she “daydreamed”. When her tests weretaken in silence, her marks were good but inconsistent with her classwork.

Classroom noises produce colours on her paper, causing her to misspellwords and fail to complete work on time. In some cases her numbers alsochange colour. For example, 2 is peach, but in “24” it turns blue, so she findstimes tables hard. Similarly, her capital “I“ has a different colour to her small“i”, so the colours of a word such as “iceberg” might be different at thebeginnning of a sentence than when it appears in the middle of a sentence.This is a problem since the first letter colour often predominates, which canlead to cognitive processing delays, particularly when learning to read.

Jenny also sees colours from the sound of a word at the same time as shesees colours from the visual spellings of the word. This can be confusing,since her brain tries to make sense of several different colour impressions ofthe same word simultaneously. She receives information in her mind visuallyand also in her other senses (e.g. taste and/or smell of a word), relating tothe same piece of information. She finds it difficult to integrate it allsometimes. She also sees colours from the teacher’s voice, the colours oflunch cooking, and classroom noises.

At present, we are trying to help Jenny learn to drown out some of the“visual noise”, and to learn to control and direct her attention as much aspossible. The school staff, now that they are aware of the condition, are alsoattemtping to ensure that she has as much support in this as they are able togive her, and they are committed to reducing distractions for her as much aspossible. She says, though, that she would never want to be without hersynesthesia, since it is really fun having all the colours to look at, eventhough they can get in the way sometimes, and that she can’t imagine musicwithout all the pretty shapes and colours and spirals. On that point, I thinkwe can all agree!

The impact of synaesthesia on learning andmemory has long been a topic of deepfascination for both synaesthetes andsynaesthesia researchers. Anecdotal reportsfrom synaesthetes indicate that synaesthesiacan cause learning difficulties, and one of themost common reasons for the parents ofyoung synaesthetes to make contact with mylab is because their children are havingacademic problems at school. These reportsare borne out by data from investigations intothe cognitive effects of synaesthesia, whichhave revealed significant cognitiveinterference from synaesthetic percepts.Numerical cognition seems to be particularlyaffected, with a recent study by Green andGoswami showing an elevated incidence ofdyscalculia amongst children with grapheme-colour synaesthesia. The primary mechanismseems to be the overriding of numericalmeaning by synaesthetic meaning, withchildren choosing answers which aresynaesthetically (rather than numerically)appropriate (e.g. blue 5 + yellow 9 = green 7).

While formal investigation has yet to beundertaken, it is notable that clinical reportsindicate a possible association betweensynaesthesia and dyslexia. Given theimportance of linguistic inducers insynaesthesia it would not be entirely surprisingto find that synaesthesia has an impact onlinguistic learning; certainly there are anecdotalreports from synaesthetes regarding how theirsynaesthesia has aided them in learning foreignlanguages, or caused confusion between twosimilarly coloured words or names.Synaesthesia has also been anecdotally linkedto autism spectrum disorders, and a study iscurrently underway at Cambridge to evaluatethe evidence for this connection.

Conversely, synaesthesia has also been linkedto ‘positive’ cognitive effects, includingimproved recall and elevated performance onperceptual tests. While many of the previousstudies involved a single case or a smallnumber of cases, a recently completed studyconducted at UCL involving 46 synaesthetesdemonstrated a significant memory advantageover controls for material that inducedsynaesthesia but no advantage for material thatdid not induce synaesthesia. Of particularinterest was the finding that this advantagemay not be related to the role of these stimulias inducers per se but to an enhanced ability toremember and perceive colour.

Synaesthesia has been anecdotally associatedwith eidetic memory (most famously in thecase of Luria’s patient S, and more recently inthe case of Daniel Tammett) and with absolutepitch. Both S and Daniel Tammett describeaccessing their eidetic recall as walking througha landscape and ‘reading’ its mnemonicsignposts. While it’s impossible to determineexactly what S meant by this description,clinical interviews with Daniel Tammett make itclear that his phenomenal recall is mediated byhis synaesthesia – the mnemonic landscape isactually a synaesthetic landscape, where eachnumber forms a particular feature of thatlandscape. His eidetic memory is limited tothose cognitive realms where he hassynaesthetic responses, and is strongest wherehis synaesthesia is strongest.

Researchers are only beginning to parse theeffects synaesthesia can have on cognition, andmuch exciting work remains to be done. Onething is clear – in the end, the impact ofsynaesthesia on learning is likely to be asindividual as synaesthesia itself.

Volume 4 Issue 1

Dec 2007

‘MY SYNAESTHESIA’

November Synaesthesia 27/11/07 12:16 Page 1

UK Synaesthesia Association • PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard LU7 0WP • uksynaesthesia @hotmail.comUK Synaesthesia Association • PO Box 6258, Leighton Buzzard LU7 0WP • uksynaesthesia @hotmail.com

The Hidden Sense:Synesthesia in Art andScience by Cretien Van CampenPublished by the MIT Press in November 2007

We look forward to welcoming you to Edinburgh for next year’s UKSA meeting, 29-30 March

2008. Alongside the intellectual programme, there will be a small exhibition of artwork.

We’d very much like to hear from synaesthete artists who would be interested in showing their work. To register your interest, please

contact Dr Sarah Haywood (sarah.haywood@ed.ac.uk, 0131 650 3410) at the Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh.

In The Hidden Sense, Cretien van Campen explores synesthesia from bothartistic and scientific perspectives, looking at accounts of individualexperiences, examples of synesthesia in visual art, music, and literature, andrecent neurological research. Van Campen reports that some studies definesynesthesia as a brain impairment, a short circuit between two different areas.But synesthetes cannot imagine perceiving in any other way; many claim thatsynesthesia helps them in daily life. Van Campen investigates just what thefunction of synesthesia might be and what it might tell us about our ownsensory perceptions. He examines the experiences of individual synesthetes--from Patrick, who sees music as images and finds the most beautiful onesspring from the music of Prince, to the schoolgirl Sylvia, who is surprised tolearn that not everyone sees the alphabet in colors as she does. And he findssuggestions of synesthesia in the work of Scriabin, Van Gogh, Kandinsky,Nabokov, Poe, and Baudelaire.What is synesthesia? It is not, van Campenconcludes, an audiovisual performance, a literary technique, an artistic trend,or a metaphor. It is, perhaps, our hidden sense--a way to think visually; a keyto our own sensitivity.Cretien van Campen is a social scientist at the Social andCultural Planning Office of the Netherlands. He is the author of two books onperception and visual art.

Further endorsements and information can be found at:http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11303

Excerpt taken from the MIT website with permission from the author.

Hi Everyone.

Hello and welcome to the final newsletter of 2007.

On behalf of the UKSA committee I am pleased to announce that

the Fourth Annual Conference will take place over the weekend of

29/30 March 2008 at The University of Edinburgh in bonny

Scotland. Following the success of the conference at Oxford we

are continuing the theme of holding the event within atmospheric

and inspiring University surroundings and they don’t come much

better than those found in historic Edinburgh.

The full programme will be announced in January and promises to

be as varied and interesting as ever. The keynote speaker will be

Joseph Long, a sound-colour synaesthete and one Scotland’s

finest concert pianists. He will be performing for us on the

evening of 29 March at the beautiful 19th Century Reid Concert

Hall after which the Conference dinner will be held in a fantastic

location overlooking the historic castle.

Conference travel and accommodation suggestions and other

relevant information can be found on the UKSA website (www.

uksynaesthesia.com; go to “members’ area”). For any other

queries contact the host Dr Jools Simner – j.simner@ed.ac.uk. For

those without Internet access, contact me on 01253 798330 and

I’ll arrange for information to be mailed to you.

At the Association we are currently reorganising and are looking

for members willing to contribute. In particular we are looking for

someone with website admin experience and another to help with

the quarterly newsletter. So, if there’s anyone out there who fits

the bill then we’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for your continued support. Have a fabulous Christmas

and all the very best for the New Year. Hopefully, we will see you

in Edinburgh on March 29/30.

James

If the incidence of synaesthesia is very low, for example 1 in 2,000, thisphenomenon would be of little relevance when carrying out a diagnosticassessment to determine whether or not a specific learning difficulty ispresent, as it would only be encountered on very rare occasions.However, it is my experience that it occurs much more frequently – 1 in 24.Knowing whether an individual is a synaesthete can be of crucial relevanceto the diagnostic outcome, for synaesthesia can mask an auditory workingmemory deficit and/or account for educational difficulties.

A working memory deficit is frequently reported for many specificlearning difficulties and accounts for a number of everyday experiences,such as forgetfulness and difficulties with multi-tasking. It is thereforeimportant, when reaching a diagnosis, to be confident that workingmemory subtest scores are genuine measures of auditory short-termmemory. However, when number-colour synaesthesia is present, theautomatic triggering of a visual perception may result in a higherperformance score than would otherwise be the case, and thus mask anunderlying working memory deficit.

Over almost eight years of carrying out diagnostic assessments for specificlearning difficulties I have become aware of the need to determinewhether synaesthesia is present. During the period 1/4/2005 to31/4/2007 a total of 378 individuals [mostly students in HE] wereassessed and 16 [4.2%] were recorded as being synaesthetes – a ratio of 1in 24. Of the ten who reported they could ‘see’ numbers when a serieswas read aloud, six said they saw them as being in different colours. Forexample, A-MB reported that when she hears a number she ‘sees’ it incolour for a short time. Each number from 1 to 12 has its own distinctivecolour [e.g. 1 is white, 2 red, 3 yellow-green, 4 blue, 5 pink, 9 green, 10metallic blue-ish]. DB reported that he felt the pressure of a number aswell. Of the four who ‘saw’ numbers in monochrome, one perceived themas being different shades. [These four reported other aspects ofsynaesthesia instead, such as experiencing moving shapes and colourswhen listening to music.]

In many cases the ability to ‘see’ numbers dramatically influencedperformance on tests designed to assess short-term memory, in particularthe WAIS-III Digit Span test. For example, A-MB’s performance on theDigit Span subtest was 2.3 standard deviations above her performance onthe Arithmetic subtest. This was also the case for MR. DB, whosesynaesthesia embraces letters as well as numbers, explained that he foundboth the Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing tasks easy as he could‘see’ the numbers and letters and just read them off.

A crucial factor appears to be how quickly images fade. Whereas MR’sperception of numbers [just black] lasted for some seconds and was quitestable, his sister, KR, who saw numbers in different colours, reported thatthe numbers faded too quickly for her to make more than limited use ofthis memory aid. It is my experience that a strong grapheme-colour formof synaesthesia can mask quite a clinically significant working memorydeficit. It is not safe to conclude simply that synaesthetes have a superiormemory [Rich & Mattingley, 2002]. Rather, it is important to be moreprecise about what form of memory is being referred to and how it isbeing measured.

For at least two subjects their synaesthesia was severe enough tointerfere with academic performance. For example, LC ‘saw’ each wordas an individual image when talking, listening and reading, resulting insensory overload.

As there is a lack of evidence about whether there may be an associationbetween specific learning differences and synaesthesia, an analysis wasundertaken by diagnostic outcome and sex for the 16 synaesthetes. [See Table 1].

The main diagnostic outcomes were as follows: dyslexia, 43.6%;dyspraxia, 17%, dyslexia and dyspraxia, 9%, ADD/ADHD, 4.2%.Synaesthesia was reported by 2.4% of dyslexics, 4.8% of dyspraxics, and25% of those with ADD/ADHD. As ADD/ADHD can be conceptualisedas a form of sensory overload, the 25% incidence figure, intuitively, is not amajor surprise. However, the sample figures are currently far too small todo more than form the basis of hypotheses.

The series was composed of slightly more females [52%] than males[48%]. 1 in 22 females were found to be synaesthete, and 1 in 30 males, a ratio of 1:1.36. An analysis by degree subject was also undertaken, for there are reports [see Rich & Mattingley, 2002] that synaesthesia isassociated with being creative and artistic. 38% of synaesthetes wereenrolled on a science-based course, 25% on a humanities-type course,19% on an arts-based course, and the other 19% on either a medical orbusiness course.

The incidence of synaesthesia reported here is almost identical to thatreported by Simner et al [2006] for a HE student population, while thefemale/male ratio is reasonably close to their figure as well. With thepossible exception of ADD/ADHD, it appears the incidence ofsynaesthesia is not associated with dyslexia or dyspraxia. However, giventhe frequency with which synaesthesia occurs, it is clear that any diagnosticassessment for a specific learning difficulty should, as a matter of course,consider the possibility that synaesthesia may also be present.

References Rich, NA & Mattingley, JB. 2002 Anomalous perception in synaesthesia:A cognitive neuroscience perspective. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 3,43-52

Simner, J., Mulvenna, C., Sagiv, N., Tsakanikos, E., Witherby, S.A., Fraser,C., Scott, K. & Ward, J. 2006 Synaesthesia: The prevalence of atypicalcross-modal experiences. Perception, 35, 1023 - 1033

David Grant: Incidence of synaesthesia and its diagnostic

implications in adults referred for suspected specific

learning difficulties during a 2-year period

Dyslexia Dyspraxia ADD/HD Other

MALES 0 1 3 2

n = 6 CF DB, AB, FB MKdysgraphia;

MR workingmemory deficit

FEMALES 4 2 1 3

n = 10 LC, PB, DG,HG

LR, GK A-MB LP dyslexia &dyspraxia;

KR processingspeed deficit;

NP no sld

Table 1: Categorisation by diagnostic outcome and sex of synaesthetes

PRESIDENTS UPDATE4th UKSA Annual Conference – 2008

UKSA MEETING

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