Synaesthesia in Chinese characters: The role of radical function and position

Consciousness and Cognition 24:38-48 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Grapheme-colour synaesthetes experience unusual colour percepts when they encounter letters and/or digits. Studies of English-speaking grapheme-colour synaesthetes have shown that synaesthetic colours are sometimes triggered by rule-based linguistic mechanisms . In contrast, little is known about synaesthesia in logographic languages such as Chinese. The current study shows the mechanisms by which synaesthetic speakers of Chinese colour their language. One hypothesis is that Chinese characters might be coloured by their constituent morphological units, known as radicals, and we tested this by eliciting synaesthetic colours for characters while manipulating features of the radicals within them. We found that both the function and position of radicals influence the nature of the synaesthetic colour generated. Our data show that in Chinese, as in English, synaesthetic colours are influenced by systematic rules, rather than by random associations, and that these rules are based on existing psycholinguistic mechanisms of language processing

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Reading and legibility of Chinese characters.S. K. Chou - 1929 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 12 (2):156.
Synaesthesia and misrepresentation: A reply to Wager.Richard Gray - 2001 - Philosophical Psychology 14 (3):339-46.
The psychology of Chinese characters.L. S. Tsai & E. Abernethy - 1928 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 11 (6):430.
Chinese ethics and Kant.Julia Ching - 1978 - Philosophy East and West 28 (2):161-172.
Synaesthesia: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology.Richard Gray - 2001 - Dissertation, University of Edinburgh
Nammyŏng chŏngsin kwa muncha ŭi hyanggi.Sŏk-ki Chʻoe - 2007 - Sŏul Tʻŭkpyŏlsi: Kyŏngin Munhwasa. Edited by Hyo-sŏk Yun.
Reading and legibility of Chinese characters. II.S. K. Chou - 1930 - Journal of Experimental Psychology 13 (4):332.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-21

Downloads
47 (#299,016)

6 months
5 (#247,092)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?