CARS VOL 2 Passage 19 101-105

Passage 19 (Questions 101–105)

The perception of a color when one hears words is the most common example of the phenomenon of synesthesia. Synesthesia can be visual-tactile, visual-gustatory, tactile-visual, or almost any combination of two senses, but reports are dominated by visually related synesthesias, and olfactory and gustatory synesthesias are less common. Two possible reasons for this difference are the proximity in the cortex of the visual areas to the auditory and motor areas, the areas implicated in taste and olfaction being relatively distant, and the fact that vision dominates normal behavior and is therefore more likely to form associations with the other senses.

The nature of the color-word associations made by synesthetes is surprising. The link is not between meaning and color, or sound and color, but between the visual appearance of the first letter of the word and color. Thus, a subject reporting the perception of red on hearing the word photograph would also report perceiving red on hearing the word palladium but a different color on hearing the word fish. The experience is described more accurately, then, as a color-grapheme association than as a color-word association. This association is not so far removed from the normal experience of linking the letters of a word with its sound. For example, it takes longer to decide that enough and bough do not rhyme than to make this decision about rough and how.

The finding that the association is graphemic in color-word synesthesia greatly constrains the possible explanations of the experience. Grapheme perception is not present at birth and only begins to develop when a child is learning to write. This fact opens up the possibility that color-grapheme synesthesia emerges during a critical period of maximum plasticity in the visual system, when it is involved in learning to link letters with sounds and strings of letters with objects.

Evidence from neuropsychological studies also points to the visual system. In 1893, Phillipe reported that 30 out of 150 blind subjects reported colored hearing after losing the sense of sight, a finding that is consistent with the remedial plasticity that occurs following cortical damage. In another case, a seeing person who had been synesthetic lost that experience after suffering brain damage that also resulted in color blindness. These findings suggest that color-grapheme synesthesia depends on activity within the visual cortex that is initiated by the responding of certain cells specialized to integrate such features as color and shape.

A different view suggests that subcortical limbic areas are more important for synesthesia. A crucial part of the reasoning behind this hypothesis lies in the argument that only humans can make cross-modal associations. This argument is mistaken. It is widely known that monkeys can make cross-modal associations, and it is by no means clear that the cortex is not involved. For example, Haenny recorded from neurons in cortical visual area V4 while monkeys were performing orientation discrimination tasks and found that many neurons responded to the visual orientation of the stimuli, as one might expect from this visual area, but that many were also sensitive to the tactile orientation of a grooved plate if its orientation was relevant to the task. Further evidence implicating visual areas in cross-modal transfer comes from a study in which monkeys were impaired in the learning of tactile-visual associations following lesions of the cortical area dedicated to the processing of tactile sensations.

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Which of the following research findings would undermine the argument about the development of color-word synesthesia?

A

Left-handed children are especially likely to be synesthetic.

B

Color-word synesthesia can develop in literate adults.

C

Color-word synesthesia can accompany the earliest attempts to read.

D

Damage to the visual cortex seldom results in synesthesia.

Solution: The correct answer is B.

1. This finding would support only the argument that synesthesia develops during a period of rapid development in children; that it develops especially in left-handed children would simply add a new twist rather than undermine the argument.

2. According to the passage argument, color-word synesthesia develops when a child is learning to write and, thus, “emerges during a critical period of maximum plasticity in the visual system, when it is involved in learning to link letters with sounds and strings of letters with objects.” A finding that synesthesia can emerge in a literate adult would undermine the argument that synesthesia develops during a period of rapid learning and development, that is, maximum plasticity, in children.

3. This would be more likely to support than to undermine the argument because learning to write and learning to read happen at approximately the same time in children and generally during a period of rapid learning and development.

4. This does not necessarily undermine the argument because the passage indicates that damage to the cortex does not always result in synesthesia—an 1893 study found “that 30 out of 150 blind subjects reported colored hearing after losing the sense of sight.” In another case, a seeing person actually lost synesthetic capability after suffering brain damage.

According to the author’s explanation, one pair of words that would be likely to evoke the same synesthetic experience is:

A

know and no.

B

knit and kit.

C

snuff and enough.

Answer choice eliminated

D

cite and site.

Solution: The correct answer is B.

1. Words with the same sounding first letter but different letters visually would not evoke the same synesthetic experience. See rationale B.

2. The passage reports that the synesthetic link is between the visual appearance of the first letter of the word and the color: “Thus, a subject reporting the perception of red on hearing the word photograph would also report perceiving red on hearing the word palladium but a different color on hearing the word fish.” Accordingly, knit and kit would evoke the same synesthetic experience because both words have the same first letter.

3. Because synesthesia depends on the visual appearance of the first letter in a word, rhyming words do not evoke synesthetic experiences. See rationale B.

4. Words with first letters that sound the same but are different visually would not evoke the same synesthetic experience. See rationale B.

The author implies that visual synesthesia can occur because certain neurons respond to the co-occurrence of a particular color and shape. A plausible hypothesis is that such cells evolved because they increased processing speed in the identification of:

A

dangerous predators on the basis of incomplete visual information.

B

group members by either their appearance or their vocalizations.

C

appropriate foods by any combination of characteristics.

D

environmental forms and patterns associated with the home territory.

Solution: The correct answer is A.

1. In the absence of a positive identification of a dangerous predator, it logically follows that the mind would need to be able to associate a certain color with a certain shape as a warning of the probable presence of a predator. Lacking this ability, a person would not likely respond to incomplete information, but only to a positive identification, which in the case of a predator could be too late.

2. Although some synesthesia is visual-auditory, it would not be necessary to associate the appearance of group members with their vocalizations because it is likely that individual group members could be positively identified by either the distinctiveness of their vocalizations or by the distinctiveness of their appearance.

3. Because olfactory and gustatory synesthesias are less common than are visual synesthesias, it is less likely that these cells evolved to identify various foods and their characteristics.

4. Environmental forms and patterns associated with home territory would be purely visual, not synesthetic, requiring the use of sight to identify them.

As the word is used in the passage, a grapheme is best described as:

A

the synesthetic element of a letter.

B

the written representation of a syllable.

C

one of the units of a spoken word.

D

one of the units of a written word.

Solution: The correct answer is D.

1. The word refers to the visual element of a letter, its literal appearance. See rationale D.

2. The written representation of a syllable would contain two or more letters, whereas it can be inferred from the passage discussion that a grapheme refers to a single letter. See rationale D.

3. A unit of a spoken word would be auditory and not visual whereas the synesthetic experience is evoked by the visual appearance of a letter. See rationale D.

4. The word as it is used here follows a discussion of how the synesthetic link “is not between meaning and color, or sound and color, but between the visual appearance of the first letter of the word and color.” The example given is that the words photograph and palladium would evoke the same synesthetic experience whereas fish and photograph would not. Therefore, it can be inferred from this discussion that the word grapheme refers to one of the units of a written word, namely, the visual element of letters.

read all answer choices throughly

Which of the following phenomena is an example of synesthesia?

A

Thinking of the sound of words while silently reading

Answer choice eliminated

B

Hearing a loud note when seeing the word trumpet

Answer choice eliminated

C

Mentally generating a tune while following written notes

D

Visualizing a scene while listening to a description

1. The difference here is between simply thinking about the sound of words when silently reading and the synesthetic experience of actually hearing a sound as the result of seeing a word. See rationale B.

2. As explained in the passage, synesthesia is distinguished by the ability of one sense experience to evoke the perception of another sense experience. In this example, the word trumpet evokes the actual perception of a loud note.

3. The mental generation of a tune is not the same as actually hearing a note when the perception produced by one sense literally evokes the perception produced by another sense, which is what occurs in the synesthetic experience. See rationale B.

4. Merely visualizing a scene while listening to a description is the work of imaginative reconstruction, which is different from the synesthetic experience of the actual perception of an actual color when hearing a certain word.

gustatory concerned with tasting or the sense of taste

olfactory refers to sense of smell

The perception of a color when one hears words is the most common example of the phenomenon of synesthesia. Synesthesia can be visual-tactile, visual-gustatory, tactile-visual, or almost any combi