Genuine Synesthesia:
The thought behind genuine synesthesia is that this type of synesthesia is a condition in which a person is born with. One of the hallmarks of genuine synesthesia is consistency, which can be described by a high inter- and low intrapersonal variance between inducer-concurrent couplings. Consistency is usually observed in a “test-retest” experiment where results observed and recorded initially will be observed again after a certain period of time. In 1987, Cohen performed one such experiment called the Test of Genuineness, which asked a synesthete to describe the color that each of 100 words triggered. A year later, they repeated the test without warning and found that the associations between words and colors that their subject described were consistent with their initial responses more than 90 percent of the time. In contrast, people without synesthesia, …show more content…
Recent studies were able to prove that acquired and drug-induced synesthesia met the criteria for the presence of inducer-concurrent pairings but further research needs to be performed to prove that these types of synesthesia are also consistent, idiosyncratic, and automatic in order to be considered a true synesthetic condition. If such results are obtained from future research, then teaching synesthesia may become a common practice because synesthesia is associated with enhanced memory. This could be beneficial to the medical field for patients that exhibit dementia (i.e. Alzheimer’s Disease, etc.), overcoming a brain injury, the elderly, and those with learning disabilities. For this to happen, scientists need to provide the general public with more information about this neurological condition, not only so there is a better understanding, but incase future research provides beneficial
The thought behind genuine synesthesia is that this type of synesthesia is a condition in which a person is born with. One of the hallmarks of genuine synesthesia is consistency, which can be described by a high inter- and low intrapersonal variance between inducer-concurrent couplings. Consistency is usually observed in a “test-retest” experiment where results observed and recorded initially will be observed again after a certain period of time. In 1987, Cohen performed one such experiment called the Test of Genuineness, which asked a synesthete to describe the color that each of 100 words triggered. A year later, they repeated the test without warning and found that the associations between words and colors that their subject described were consistent with their initial responses more than 90 percent of the time. In contrast, people without synesthesia, …show more content…
Recent studies were able to prove that acquired and drug-induced synesthesia met the criteria for the presence of inducer-concurrent pairings but further research needs to be performed to prove that these types of synesthesia are also consistent, idiosyncratic, and automatic in order to be considered a true synesthetic condition. If such results are obtained from future research, then teaching synesthesia may become a common practice because synesthesia is associated with enhanced memory. This could be beneficial to the medical field for patients that exhibit dementia (i.e. Alzheimer’s Disease, etc.), overcoming a brain injury, the elderly, and those with learning disabilities. For this to happen, scientists need to provide the general public with more information about this neurological condition, not only so there is a better understanding, but incase future research provides beneficial