ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Synaesthesia: a distinct entity that is an emergent feature of adaptive neurocognitive differences.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Increased prevalence of synaesthesia in musicians.Perception · 2026Article
- Transient acquisition process of grapheme-color synesthesia on novel graphemes.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Functional connectivity study on visually evoked auditory response based on high-density electroencephalography.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Rainbows in my ears-Synesthetic color perception with partial-reduced and morphed musical instrument timbres.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Synesthesia is linked to large and extensive differences in brain structure and function as determined by whole-brain biomarkers derived from the HCP (Human Connectome Project) cortical parcellation approach.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Subtitled speech: the neural mechanisms of ticker-tape synaesthesia.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2024Article
- synr: An R package for handling synesthesia consistency test data.Behavior research methods · 2023Article
- An Open Science MRI Database of over 100 Synaesthetic Brains and Accompanying Deep Phenotypic Information.Scientific data · 2023Article
- From Puzzle to Progress: How Engaging With Neurodiversity Can Improve Cognitive Science.Cognitive science · 2023Article
- How do Different Types of Synesthesia Cluster Together? Implications for Causal Mechanisms.Perception · 2022Article
- Vicarious experiences of touch (mirror touch) in a Chinese sample: Cross-cultural and individual differences.PloS one · 2022Article
- Language evolution: examining the link between cross-modality and aggression through the lens of disorders.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The Relation Between Autistic Traits, the Degree of Synaesthesia, and Local/Global Visual Perception.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2020Article
- Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
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Abstract
In this article, I argue that synaesthesia is not on a continuum with neurotypical cognition. Synaesthesia is special: its phenomenology is different; it has distinct causal mechanisms; and is likely to be associated with a distinct neurocognitive profile. However, not all synaesthetes are the same, and there are quantifiable differences between them. In particular, the number of types of synaesthesia that a person possesses is a hitherto underappreciated variable that predicts cognitive differences along a number of dimensions (mental imagery, sensory sensitivity, attention to detail). Together with enhanced memory, this may constitute a common core of abilities that may go some way to explaining why synaesthesia might have evolved. I argue that the direct benefits of synaesthesia are generally limited (i.e. the synaesthetic associations do not convey novel information about the world) but, nevertheless, synaesthesia may develop due to other adaptive functions (e.g. perceptual ability, memory) that necessitate changes to design features of the brain. The article concludes by suggesting that synaesthesia forces us to reconsider what we mean by a 'normal' mind/brain. There may be multiple 'normal' neurodevelopmental trajectories that can sculpt very different ways of experiencing the world, of which synaesthesia is but one. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia'.
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