School of Psychology, University of Sussex, United Kingdom.
Institute for Computer Systems Architecture, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Cognition. 2016 May;150:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.01.007. Epub 2016 Feb 2.
This study used grapheme-colour synaesthesia, a neurological condition where letters evoke a strong and consistent impression of colour, as a tool to investigate normal language processing. For two sets of compound words varying by lexical frequency (e.g., football vs lifevest) or semantic transparency (e.g., flagpole vs magpie), we asked 19 grapheme-colour synaesthetes to choose their dominant synaesthetic colour using an online colour palette. Synaesthetes could then select a second synaesthetic colour for each word if they experienced one. For each word, we measured the number of elicited synaesthetic colours (zero, one, or two) and the nature of those colours (in terms of their saturation and luminance values). In the first analysis, we found that the number of colours was significantly influenced by compound frequency, such that the probability of a one-colour response increased with frequency. However, semantic transparency did not influence the number of synaesthetic colours. In the second analysis, we found that the luminance of the dominant colour was predicted by the frequency of the first constituent (e.g. rain in rainbow). We also found that the dominant colour was significantly more luminant than the secondary colour. Our results show the influence of implicit linguistic measures on synaesthetic colours, and support multiple/dual-route models of compound processing.
本研究利用了字母颜色联觉（grapheme-colour synaesthesia），这是一种神经状态，其中字母会强烈而一致地唤起颜色的印象，作为研究正常语言处理的工具。对于两组按词汇频率（例如，football 与 lifevest）或语义透明度（例如，flagpole 与 magpie）变化的复合词，我们要求 19 名字母颜色联觉者使用在线调色板选择他们的主导联觉颜色。如果联觉者有体验，他们可以为每个单词选择第二种联觉颜色。对于每个单词，我们测量了引出的联觉颜色数量（零、一或二）以及这些颜色的性质（根据饱和度和亮度值）。在第一个分析中，我们发现颜色数量受到复合词频率的显著影响，使得单一颜色反应的概率随着频率的增加而增加。然而，语义透明度并不影响联觉颜色的数量。在第二个分析中，我们发现主导颜色的亮度值由第一个成分的频率预测（例如，rain 在 rainbow 中）。我们还发现主导颜色比次要颜色明显更亮。我们的结果表明，隐含的语言测量对联觉颜色有影响，并支持复合词处理的多重/双途径模型。
