TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mroczko-Wąsowicz, Aleksandra
A1  - Nikolić, Danko
T1  - Semantic mechanisms may be responsible for developing synesthesia
T2  - Frontiers in human neuroscience
N2  - Currently, little is known about how synesthesia develops and which aspects of synesthesia can be acquired through a learning process. We review the increasing evidence for the role of semantic representations in the induction of synesthesia, and argue for the thesis that synesthetic abilities are developed and modified by semantic mechanisms. That is, in certain people semantic mechanisms associate concepts with perception-like experiences—and this association occurs in an extraordinary way. This phenomenon can be referred to as “higher” synesthesia or ideasthesia. The present analysis suggests that synesthesia develops during childhood and is being enriched further throughout the synesthetes’ lifetime; for example, the already existing concurrents may be adopted by novel inducers or new concurrents may be formed. For a deeper understanding of the origin and nature of synesthesia we propose to focus future research on two aspects: (i) the similarities between synesthesia and ordinary phenomenal experiences based on concepts; and (ii) the tight entanglement of perception, cognition and the conceptualization of the world. Importantly, an explanation of how biological systems get to generate experiences, synesthetic or not, may have to involve an explanation of how semantic networks are formed in general and what their role is in the ability to be aware of the surrounding world.
KW  - synesthesia
KW  - perception
KW  - cognition
KW  - concepts
KW  - learning
KW  - semantics
KW  - cognitive penetrability
Y1  - 2014
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/34996
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-349961
SN  - 1662-5161
N1  - Copyright © 2014 Mroczko-Wąsowicz and Nikolić. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
VL  - 8
IS  - Article 509
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -