Article Review A longitudinal study of grapheme-colour synaesthesia in childhood: 6/7 years to 10/11 years Word Count: 889 (excluding

references).

In this review, the above article by Simner and Bain (2013) will be critically discussed. The article was a continuation of a longitudinal study started by Simner et al. in 2009 (as cited by Simner & Bain, 2013) to investigate the development of grapheme-colour synaesthesia in children over a period of years. In the 2009 study (Simner et al.), 600 children were randomly sampled and underwent testing at age 6/7 and 7/8 years. The study in hand examined the same population at 10/11 years. The children were split up into three groups based on results from a paired-association task; non-synesthetic children with average memory, non-synesthetic children with superior memory and synesthetic children, of which 8 were found. According to the authors, they were able to plot the development of synaesthesia in child synesthetes over time and they found that the grapheme-colour pairs become more fixed with age, with 34% fixed at 6/7 years, 48% fixed at 7/8 years and 71% fixed at 10/11 years (Simner & Bain, 2013). Firstly, it is important to state that this study has value by means of it being one of the only studies in the literature that empirically examines the development of synaesthesia (Simner & Bain, 2013). Another positive point to make relates to the way participants were recruited initially in 2009 (Simner et al.), whereby a large sample of children were randomly sampled and tested. Another method of recruiting participants would be to look to the children of known adult synesthetes but, as rightfully stated by the authors, a sample from this source may not be representative (Simner & Bain, 2013). However, the above positive aspects of the paper are undermined by the limitations to the study.

There are several key issues underpinning this study, which will be discussed. The first issue to be examined is the methodology i.e. the pairedassociation task. Participants were presented with one of 26 letters or digits 0-9 along with a colour palette of 13 colours, and asked to match a colour to the grapheme presented. The small range of colour-choice was justified by citing previous investigation into this by Simner et al. (2009). However, in direct contradiction, the authors included green and blue as well as dark variants of the two hues and did not consider an answer combining the two shades of one colour to be consistent answering. For example, an answer of blue when presented with 1 would not be deemed consistent with an answer of dark blue for the same number. These two aspects of the test design seem to clash with one another in an illogical fashion. Perhaps the most fundamental issue in the study is the definition of synaesthesia by the authors. Specifically, Simner and Bain (2013) wrote: grapheme-colour synaesthesia is a condition characterized by enduring and consistent associations between letter/digits and colours. (pg. 1). This definition resulted in a criterion, that to be classified as a true synesthete, the participants had to produce consistent results in the paired-association tasks over time and more consistently over 12 months than non-synesthetic children performed after a 10 second break between testing. This was enforced strictly and resulted in only 8 children being identified as synesthetes by Simner et al. (2009) and 6 children with borderline scores being classified as non-synesthetes (Simner & Bain, 2013). In a previous paper by Simner (2012) there were arguments presented that perhaps consistency over time is not a gold standard mark of synaesthesia (Marks, 2005, as cited by Simner & Bain, 2013), and that perhaps synesthetes who have consistent pairings are only a subset of the overall population. Simner and Bain acknowledged this in their 2013 paper, but the findings of the paper are still defended by the authors: Nonetheless, our study remains informative about this particular population, per se. (pg. 7). This statement seems rather contradictory seeing as there may have been many participants inappropriately

left out of the synesthetic group and possible skewing of the findings due to the narrow definition of synaesthesia and the strict and inflexible criteria. Another key issue in this study is the framework through which the authors of the study viewed synaesthesia. According to Marks (2011 and 2012, as cited by Marks & Mulvenna, 2013), there are three theoretical frameworks that could be used to categorize synaesthesia and other perceptual phenomena, one of which is monism. By looking at synaesthesia through this framework, it could be defined as a spectrum with weak and strong forms such as in Marks (2001). Therefore, more cases could be found and perhaps synaesthesia could be studied and understood to a greater extent. The authors in this study appear to take a more dualistic/pluralistic framework, where each participant is either a synesthete or not. This framework greatly limits the possible understanding of synaesthesia and makes it even more difficult to study as a rare phenomenon. Overall, despite the positive aspects of this study, it appears that these are outweighed by the limitation and pitfalls of the article. This is a pity due to the certain unique aspects in the focus of the study and in its participant recruitment. In summary, the narrowness of the design of this study have resulted in this study having limited uses and practical applications to the understanding of grapheme-colour synaesthesia, and even fewer contributions to the study of synaesthesia in general.

References: Marks, L., & Mulvenna, C. (2013). Synesthesia, at and near its borders. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, pg. 1-4. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00651. Marks, L. (2001). Synesthesia: Strong and weak. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(2), pg. 61-65. doi: 10.1111/1467-8721.00116

Simner, J. , & Bain, A. (2013). A longitudinal study of grapheme-colour synesthesia in childhood: 6/7 years to 10/11 years. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, 1-4. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00603. Simner, J (2012). Defining synaesthesia. British Journal of Psychology, 103, pg. 115. doi: 10.1348/000712610X528305.