Artistic and Psychological Experiments

The paper will aim to review the journal on psychology regarding synesthesia. Synesthesia is a condition whereby a feature such as a shape like a letter A and B evoke a perception of another condition e. A can evoke the red color while B evokes the blue color on an individual's perception (Dick, 2014). Another definition is that synesthesia is a phenomenon in which an individual experiences unusual perception evoked y the activation of unrelated sensory modality or through a cognitive process (Malim, 2011). According to the author, tests performed by Baron-Cohen, Burt Smith and Harrison established the authenticity of artificial colors. Regardless of the tests, the author states that it is still not clear at what stage the visual of color processing stream is evoked. The article tries to answer the above dilemma by posting questions as to whether it involves relating to high levels of mental association and memories or if the colors are evoked earlier in visual processing and imbued with qualia (Malim, 2011).   The article explains that tests that involved the use of embedded shapes tasks, identified that synthetically stimulated colors could lead to pop-out and texture segregation, this shows that there is perceptual evidence for synesthesia. The author cites another test conducted by Hubbard and Ramachadran (2010) in which they encountered two synesthesias at least, who saw colors in numbers that do not exist in the real world. This test indicates that synesthesia may not be as a result of acquired learning but rather the individual's perception. In the article, various theories have made efforts to explain the synesthesia phenomenon. Such theory includes the cross-sectional theory. The theory suggests that synesthesia comes about as a result of cross-activation of between posterior temporal grapheme areas (PTGA) and the color processing area known as the V4. The disinhibited feedback theory explains that synesthesia arises from the disinhibiting of pre-existing feedback connections. The author highlights that similar finding such as those put forward by the cross-sectional theory, re-appeared during the test conducted by Hubbard and Ramachadran in 2010. The author includes another experiment that consisted of four participants who were asked to read the right words they would spot among a list of reversed words and wrong words. The test found that the average error rate for synthetics as 0.03% while that for non-synthetics stood at 23.8%. The author adds that during the same test some of the participants remarked that they first noticed the color before they could identify the shapes of the letters, and they used the color to clue them on the letters. This test concluded that the four synthetics of grapheme are processed unconsciously up to the fusiform and the cross-activate the color cells in V4 before the information is transmitted higher up where the color is used to infer the grapheme (Dark, 2009). The experiment also concluded that in projector synthesis, the phenomenon seems to occur at earlier in sensory processing. The initial stages of letter processing, the visual inputs are used to trigger the component features of the letters (the lines and curves). The trigger leads to the activation of all letter and character that consist of all or some of the component features. Therefore following this logic, the participants managed to identify the right words through processing the synthetic colors relatively earlier and sending the extra information to a higher level of sensory processing, and thus providing additional insight into reading the distorted words and backward-written texts (Baron-Cohen & Harrison, 2014). The author has managed to deliver the overall understanding of the synesthesia phenomenon through the support of several pieces of research, experiments, and theories cited by other authors. The use of pictures in the article further enhances the understanding of the phenomenon as well as the degree at which the experiments were conducted. The statistical data incorporated in the literature has also contributed to the genuineness of the findings. The structure of the article seems more of a review rather than a research as it relies heavily on other researchers work rather than the author's findings or experiments. However, the article's structure is well simplified and can deliver the point easily to the leader. The over reliance on other people's work brings about the question of credibility as some findings may be structured in a biased way. Cases where such issues of credibility arise include, the Ramachandran way of personifying characters and letters. She suggested that according to her perception, letter A seems to be the jealous one while B is quiet and non-assertive (Campen, 2010). Such findings leave the reader with a question as to whether the synesthesia phenomenon is learned or is dependent upon the individual's way of viewing life. The article has managed to deliver the most relevant points to the reader. This is due to its simplicity in writing and structure. However, the credibility of the findings still remains questionable. Baron-Cohen, S. & Harrison, J. (2014).  Synaesthesia  (1st ed.). Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell. Campen, C. (2010).  Artistic and psychological experiments with synesthesia  (1st ed.). Cognition, Object Formation, Speech Perception, Time Perception, Visual Attention, Visual Information Processing, Visual Memory. (2009).  Perception & Psychophysics,  71(1), 3-4. https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/app.71.1.3 Dark, V. (2009). Switching between memory and perception: Moving attention or memory retrieval?.  Memory & Cognition,  18(2), 119-127. https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03197088 Dick, A. (2014). Iconic memory and its relation to perceptual processing and other memory mechanisms.  Perception & Psychophysics,  16(3), 575-596. https://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03198590 Malim, T. (2011).  Cognitive processes  (1st ed.). London: Macmillan.