Smilek Daniel, Dixon Mike J, Cudahy Cera, Merikle Philip M
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Psychol Sci. 2002 Nov;13(6):548-52. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00496.
We describe the extraordinary memory of C, a 21-year-old student who experiences synesthetic colors (i.e., photisms) when she sees, hears, or thinks of digits. Using three matrices of 50 digits, we tested C and 7 nonsynesthetes to evaluate whether C's synesthetic photisms influence her memory for digits. One matrix consisted of black digits, whereas the other two matrices consisted of digits that were either incongruent or congruent with the colors of C's photisms. C's recall of the incongruently colored digits was considerably poorer than her recall of either the black or the congruently colored digits. The 7 nonsynesthetes did not show such differences in their recall of the matrices. In addition, when immediate recall of the black digits was compared with delayed recall of those digits (48 hr), C showed no decrease in performance, whereas each of the nonsynesthetes showed a significant decrease. These findings both demonstrate C's extraordinary memory and show that her synesthetic photisms can influence her memory for digits.
我们描述了一位21岁学生C的非凡记忆力，她在看到、听到或想到数字时会体验到联觉色彩（即光幻视）。我们使用三个包含50个数字的矩阵对C和7名非联觉者进行测试，以评估C的联觉光幻视是否会影响她对数字的记忆。一个矩阵由黑色数字组成，而另外两个矩阵由与C的光幻视颜色不一致或一致的数字组成。C对颜色不一致的数字的回忆明显不如她对黑色或颜色一致的数字的回忆。这7名非联觉者在回忆矩阵时没有表现出这种差异。此外，当将对黑色数字的即时回忆与对这些数字的延迟回忆（48小时）进行比较时，C的表现没有下降，而每名非联觉者的表现都有显著下降。这些发现既证明了C非凡的记忆力，也表明她的联觉光幻视会影响她对数字的记忆。
