Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. Export

@article{citeulike:1561664, abstract = {Sensory and cognitive mechanisms allow stimuli to be perceived with properties relating to sight, sound, touch, etc, and ensure, for example, that visual properties are perceived as visual experiences, rather than sounds, tastes, smells, etc. Theories of normal development can be informed by cases where this modularity breaks down, in a condition known as synaesthesia. Conventional wisdom has held that this occurs extremely rarely (0.05\% of births) and affects women more than men. Here we present the first test of synaesthesia prevalence with sampling that does not rely on self-referral, and which uses objective tests to establish genuineness. We show that (a) the prevalence of synaesthesia is 88 times higher than previously assumed, (b) the most common variant is coloured days, (c) the most studied variant (grapheme-colour synaesthesia)--previously believed most common--is prevalent at 1\%, and (d) there is no strong asymmetry in the distribution of synaesthesia across the sexes. Hence, we suggest that female biases reported earlier likely arose from (or were exaggerated by) sex differences in self-disclosure.}, address = {Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. j.simner@ed.ac.uk}, author = {Simner, J. and Mulvenna, C. and Sagiv, N. and Tsakanikos, E. and Witherby, S. A. and Fraser, C. and Scott, K. and Ward, J.}, citeulike-article-id = {1561664}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17076063}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=17076063}, issn = {0301-0066}, journal = {Perception}, keywords = {neuroscience, synaesthesia}, number = {8}, pages = {1024--1033}, posted-at = {2007-08-15 05:19:00}, priority = {0}, title = {Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences.}, url = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17076063}, volume = {35}, year = {2006} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1561664 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1561664 N2 - Sensory and cognitive mechanisms allow stimuli to be perceived with properties relating to sight, sound, touch, etc, and ensure, for example, that visual properties are perceived as visual experiences, rather than sounds, tastes, smells, etc. Theories of normal development can be informed by cases where this modularity breaks down, in a condition known as synaesthesia. Conventional wisdom has held that this occurs extremely rarely (0.05% of births) and affects women more than men. Here we present the first test of synaesthesia prevalence with sampling that does not rely on self-referral, and which uses objective tests to establish genuineness. We show that (a) the prevalence of synaesthesia is 88 times higher than previously assumed, (b) the most common variant is coloured days, (c) the most studied variant (grapheme-colour synaesthesia)--previously believed most common--is prevalent at 1%, and (d) there is no strong asymmetry in the distribution of synaesthesia across the sexes. Hence, we suggest that female biases reported earlier likely arose from (or were exaggerated by) sex differences in self-disclosure. IS - 8 JF - Perception SN - 0301-0066 AD - Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. j.simner@ed.ac.uk EP - 1033 TI - Synaesthesia: the prevalence of atypical cross-modal experiences. VL - 35 SP - 1024 KW - neuroscience KW - synaesthesia AU - Simner, J AU - Mulvenna, C AU - Sagiv, N AU - Tsakanikos, E AU - Witherby, SA AU - Fraser, C AU - Scott, K AU - Ward, J PY - 2006/// UR - http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17076063 ER -