Author:

Keywords:

Social Sciences, Psychology, Experimental, Psychology, synesthesia, colour priming, automaticity, HEARING SYNESTHESIA, INTERFERENCE, SYNAESTHESIA, BINDING, Analysis of Variance, Color, Color Perception, Electronic Data Processing, Female, Humans, Male, Perceptual Masking, Photic Stimulation, Reaction Time, Time Factors, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Experimental Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5202 Biological psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

A currently unresolved issue in research on synesthesia concerns the extent to which synesthetic experiences arise automatically. To shed light on this issue, we manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) in a synesthetic colour priming task (i.e., 0 ms, 200 ms, 1,000 ms). Results show that 200-ms presentations of synesthetic inducers produce reliable synesthetic colour priming at short SOAs. Based on this finding, we conclude that synesthesia is produced by fast-acting, automatic processes.