The psycholinguistics of synaesthesia: What can we learn from studying synaesthetes?

Abstract

In recent decades, synaesthesia – a condition characterised by a ‘joining of the senses’ – has grown in popularity as a subject of research. As the field expands from describing the condition to applying it to other areas of human cognition, a fundamental assumption must be addressed: Are the experiences of synaesthetes generalisable to non-synaesthetes as well? This article argues that not only can synaesthesia provide useful insights into the general functioning of language, but it is a useful and promising tool to investigate a variety of outstanding scientific questions.