Abstract
Time-space synesthesia is a variant of sequence–space synesthesia and involves the involuntary association of months of the year with 2D and 3D spatial forms, such as arcs, circles, and ellipses. Previous studies have revealed conflicting results regarding the association between time-space synesthesia and enhanced spatial processing ability. Here, we tested 15 time-space synesthetes, and 15 non-synesthetic controls matched for age, education, and gender on standard tests of mental rotation ability, spatial working memory, and verbal working memory. Synesthetes performed better than controls on our test of mental rotation, but similarly to controls on tests of spatial and verbal working memory. Results support a dissociation between visuo-spatial imagery and spatial working memory capacity, and suggest time-space synesthesia is associated only with enhanced visuo-spatial imagery. These data are consistent with the time-space connectivity thesis that time-space synesthesia results from enhanced connectivity in the parietal lobe between regions supporting the representation of temporal sequences and those underlying visuo-spatial imagery.
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Notes
Twenty-two control subjects initially participated in these tasks, but seven were removed in order to match control and synesthetic groups according to gender; control subjects included in this final number were selected chronologically based on participation date. The exclusion of these subjects had no impact on the pattern of significant and non-significant differences between the groups.
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Brang, D., Miller, L.E., McQuire, M. et al. Enhanced mental rotation ability in time-space synesthesia. Cogn Process 14, 429–434 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0561-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-013-0561-5