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An independent component analysis of fMRI data of grapheme–colour synaesthesia
Author(s) -
Specht Karsten,
Laeng Bruno
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of neuropsychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.85
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1748-6653
pISSN - 1748-6645
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-6653.2011.02008.x
Subject(s) - stroop effect , psychology , cognitive psychology , independent component analysis , task (project management) , perception , synesthesia , audiology , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , cognition , computer science , medicine , management , economics
The independent component analysis (ICA) method was applied to fMRI data from two synaesthetes and their matched controls while they performed the coloured‐word Stroop task and the single‐letter (synaesthetic) Stroop task. ICA identified an ‘attention’ network, a ‘perceptual’ network as well as a ‘conflict monitoring’ network. Increased activity was observed in right V4 during the single‐letter Stroop task for synaesthetes only. The finding confirms that the same neural substrate that is known to support the experience of physical colours also supports the experience of synaesthetic colours.