Prevalence, characteristics and a neurocognitive model of mirror-touch synaesthesia
Prevalence, characteristics and a neurocognitive model of mirror-touch synaesthesia
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DOI：
10.1007/s00221-009-1810-9
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发表时间：
2009-09-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Ward, Jamie
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Banissy, Michael J.;Kadosh, Roi Cohen;Ward, Jamie
在所谓的“镜触联觉”中，观察他人的触摸会在联觉者自己的身体上产生主观的触觉感觉。有人认为，这种类型的联觉取决于观察他人触摸时激活的神经系统活动的增加。在这里，我们报告了第一项关于这种联觉变体的普遍性的研究。我们的研究结果表明，这种类型的联觉与一些更经常研究的联觉（例如字素颜色联觉）一样常见，甚至更常见。此外，我们还检查与该病症相关的行为相关性。在第二个实验中，我们表明联觉体验与躯体提示无关——观察到的身体部位上的闪光不会引起联觉的行为或主观特征。最后，我们提出了一个神经认知模型来解释这些特征，并讨论我们的发现对联觉一般理论的影响。
In so-called 'mirror-touch synaesthesia', observing touch to another person induces a subjective tactile sensation on the synaesthete's own body. It has been suggested that this type of synaesthesia depends on increased activity in neural systems activated when observing touch to others. Here we report the first study on the prevalence of this variant of synaesthesia. Our findings indicate that this type of synaesthesia is just as common, if not more common than some of the more frequently studied varieties of synaesthesia such as grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Additionally, we examine behavioural correlates associated with the condition. In a second experiment, we show that synaesthetic experiences are not related to somatotopic cueing-a flash of light on an observed body part does not elicit the behavioural or subjective characteristics of synaesthesia. Finally, we propose a neurocognitive model to account for these characteristics and discuss the implications of our findings for general theories of synaesthesia.