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Vol.26 No.3

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Correlation between grapheme frequency and synesthetic colors in color-graphemic synesthesia

The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology / The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, (P)1226-9654; (E)2733-466X
2014, v.26 no.3, pp.133-149
https://doi.org/10.22172/cogbio.2014.26.3.001


& (2014). Correlation between grapheme frequency and synesthetic colors in color-graphemic synesthesia. The Korean Journal of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, 26(3), 133-149, https://doi.org/10.22172/cogbio.2014.26.3.001

Abstract

Individuals with color-graphemic synesthesia experience idiosyncratic colors while viewing achromatic letters or digits. Despite the large individual difference in grapheme-color associations, several studies have tried to examine the determinants of grapheme-color synesthesia. For example, Beeli et al. (2007) found that the more a letter is frequently used in German, the more saturated was the synesthetic color induced by it, and Hermann et al. (2012) found the correlation between grapheme frequency and the wavelength of synesthetic color. In the present study, we investigated whether grapheme occurrence frequency is associated with hue, saturation, luminance (HSL) and dominant wavelength of induced synesthetic color. We also investigated whether the potential correlation between grapheme frequency and synesthetic color differs between the first and the second languages. Seven Korean multilingual synesthetes participated in a color-matching test where they picked their “colors” from the color palette on the color-calibrated monitor while viewing Korean consonants and Latin alphabets. The matched RGB values of those graphemes were converted into CIE xy coordinates on the CIE xyY color space. HSL value and dominant wavelength were extracted from the CIE xy coordinates. Two kinds of grapheme frequency - written and spoken - were considered. The results showed that graphemes used more frequently within written and spoken language tended to induce synesthetic colors with longer wavelength both for Korean consonants and for Latin alphabets. However, correlation between grapheme frequency and dominant wavelength was stronger for Korean consonants than for Latin alphabets. In terms of HSL, saturation and luminance showed positive correlation with frequency in Korean consonants. No significant correlations were found in Latin alphabets. Difference between Korean consonants and Latin alphabets in terms of saturation was found within written and spoken frequency and difference in terms of luminance was shown within spoken frequency. These results imply that grapheme frequency can shape synesthetic color perception and its’ influence can differ between the first and the second languages. The results from this study, therefore, suggest the possibility that synesthetic color experience is not only related to perception but broader ranges of cognitive processes including language, learning, and memory.

keywords
Color-graphemic synesthesia, grapheme frequency, dominant wavelength, saturation, luminance, language acquisition, 색-자소 공감각, 자소사용빈도, 주파장, 채도, 명도, 언어 학습

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