University College London, UK.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2005 Feb;22(1):28-41. doi: 10.1080/02643290442000022.
This study compares two different profiles of synaesthesia. One group (N = 7) experiences synaesthetic colour and the other (N = 7) experiences taste. Both groups are significantly more consistent over time than control subjects asked to generate analogous associations. For the colour synaesthetes, almost every word elicits a colour photism and there are systematic relationships between the colours generated by words and those generated by graphemes within the word (hence "grapheme-colour" synaesthesia). For the taste synaesthetes, by contrast, some words elicit no synaesthesia at all, and in those words that do, there is no relationship between the taste attributed to the word and the taste attributed to component graphemes. Word frequency and lexicality (word vs. nonword) appear to be critical in determining the presence of synaesthesia in this group (hence "lexical-gustatory" synaesthesia). Moreover, there are strong phonological links (e.g., cinema tastes of "cinnamon rolls") suggesting that the synaesthetic associations have been influenced by vocabulary knowledge from the semantic category of food. It is argued that different cognitive mechanisms are responsible for the synaesthesia in each group, which may reflect, at least in part, the different geographical locations of the affected perceptual centres in the brain.
这项研究比较了两种不同类型的联觉。一组（N=7）体验联觉颜色，另一组（N=7）体验味觉。与被要求产生类似联想的对照组相比，这两组在时间上的一致性都显著更高。对于颜色联觉者，几乎每个单词都会引发颜色幻觉，并且单词中的字母和字母组合所产生的颜色之间存在系统的关系（因此称为“字母-颜色”联觉）。相比之下，对于味觉联觉者，有些单词根本不会引发联觉，而且在那些会引发联觉的单词中，单词所赋予的味道与组成单词的字母所赋予的味道之间没有关系。词频和词汇性（单词与非单词）似乎是决定这一组是否存在联觉的关键因素（因此称为“词汇-味觉”联觉）。此外，还有强烈的语音联系（例如，“肉桂卷”这个词的味觉），表明联觉联想受到了来自食物语义范畴的词汇知识的影响。有人认为，每个组的联觉都有不同的认知机制负责，这可能至少部分反映了受影响的感知中心在大脑中的不同地理位置。
