5. Synaesthesia

Question 1

What is multi-sensory perception? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 1

The process by which information from different senses are brought together

Question 2

What is the McGurk illusion? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 2

• ‘BA’ presented to the ears
• ‘GA’ presented to the eyes
• Subject perceives ‘DA’

Question 3

What are the three defining properties? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 3

1) Concrete perceptual experiences
2) Elicited by stimuli in the environment or by internal thoughts
3) Automatic and cannot be suppressed

Question 4

What is synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 4

A neuropsychological trait in which the stimulation of one sense causes the automatic experience of another sense

Question 5

What characteristics does synaesthesia hold? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 5

• Biologically driven
• Presented over a lifespan
• Triggered by linguistic stimuli

Question 6

How does acquired synaesthesia differ from synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 6

It is produced from experiences (like a long term blind fold) or psychedelic drugs, so effects are only short term

Question 7

What three tests support synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 7

• High internal consistency
• Functional imaging (fMRI)
• Synaestheic troop effect

Question 8

How does high internal consistency support synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 8

• P’s asked to associated a colour with a number and then again months later
• synaesthesics = 95-100%
• controls = 40-45%

Question 9

How does functional imaging (fMRI) support synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 9

• P’s have a blind fold on and the researcher speaks to them

- synaesthesics activated the part of their brain associated with colour, whereas the control group did not

Question 10

How does synaestheic troop effect support synaesthesia? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 10

The control group could complete this much faster than those with synaesthesia

Question 11

What did Blakemore et al (2005) find? (ccc synaesthesia)

Answer 11

Watching someone else be touched activates our own sensory cortex, thinking that we are being touched in the same area