A name is a very important way to distinguish people, yet a very arbitrary and random measure. When you think of your own name, I doubt you even think twice. It has been with you all your life and you’ve learned, very early on, that it is specifically associated with you. As you’ve progressed through life, you have no doubt interacted with people of all different names, all of whom have played different roles in your life.

Me and my roommates on a weekend trip to Belgium. After a month of living in Paris with them, I know their names and share the experiential connection of this program with them.

When it comes to strangers, however, we have no connections that tell us anything about their lives. We know nothing about who they are, yet there can be something in their face that makes us randomly associate them with a name. Personally, whenever I’m at the airport for a long time, I resort to people-watching: I do not know the man who passes me, yet I feel as though his name must be something like “Bob”, or “Lou”. How can I possibly make such an association with a complete stranger?

As it turns out, the answer may have to do with cross-modal communication. Originally it was thought that this kind of “arbitrary connection” sort of communication existed only in the rarest cases, such as a person with synesthesia (individuals who experience activation of one seemingly unrelated sense when another is activated). However, an experiment known as the Bouba-Kiki effect served to change the public view on cross-modality between senses.

The Bouba-Kiki Effect: Which of these two objects seems more like a Bouba? Which do you see as Kiki?

Observing the figure above, which of the two shapes do you feel is Bouba? Which would you call Kiki? The answer seems to come easily, doesn’t it? Turns out, the vast majority of people who took this test called the figure on the left Bouba and the one on the right Kiki. If there was truly no association between this unknown shape and these seemingly arbitrary names, how could a majority of people consistently come to the same conclusion?

The Bouba-Kiki effect describes this phenomenon in which names are randomly assigned to abstract shapes in a systematic manner (Cuskley, Simner, and Kirby, 2017).  In the example above, Bouba is a name that requires the mouth to form a rounder shape. Bouba sounds softer and more rotund, and the physical sensation of saying this name aligns with the rounder and gentler abstract shape on the left. Saying Kiki induces sharper pointed sounds, such as how the abstract shape on the right is physically spiky and harsh. These results indicate that we may all have synesthetic tendencies and make arbitrary connections between different types of data.

Figure: Example stimuli faces shown during the Barton Bouba-Kiki experiment

Even though it may seem like a stretch, a recent study by Barton and Halberstadh (2017) seeks to prove that this random association is also present when we are identifying the faces of complete strangers. In this experiment, participants were shown a set of random faces that were either quite angular or quite round (see above), and they were asked to randomly assign names to these faces, in ranked order. Six names were available to choose: Jono, George and Lou were the “round” names, while Mickey, Kirk, and Pete were the “pointy” names.

After 20 randomized trials in which participants ranked names for these face stimuli, a significance was found for sharper faces (those on the left of the above figure) that were named from the “pointy” name category, as well as for rounder faces (those on the right of the above figure) named from the “round” name category. This means that the odds of naming a face with its correspondingly sharp or round name are greater than random chance.

Figure: Senatorial candidates and their name-face association. A higher score represents POORER fit between name and face, while lower score represents HIGHER fit between name and face.

These connections between face shape and name identification have interesting implications. Are peoples’ names completely arbitrary? According to the figure above, Bob Weygand would have a social advantage over Rocky Raczkowski due to a better fit between name and face. Socially, certain face shapes carry expectations about the attached name; when these expectations are violated, more complex social judgments take place about the quality of that person’s character (Barton and Halberstadh, 2017). It has been shown that people who “match” with their name (in terms of the distinctions mentioned above) are generally seen as having a character consistent with their name and appearance. For example, in the political sphere, candidates with well-fitting names tend to win their seats by about a 10-point margin as compared with competing politicians (Barton and Halberstadh, 2017).

So there you have it! Your face might give people a clue as to what your name could be, and you may get an innate social advantage by having a high association between your face and your name. Looks like our parents had a lot to consider when they chose our names!

Sources:

Barton, D. N., & Halberstadt, J. (2017). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25(3), 1013-1020. doi:10.3758/s13423-017-1304-x

Cuskley, C., Simner, J., & Kirby, S. (2015). Phonological and orthographic influences in the bouba–kiki effect. Psychological Research, 81(1), 119-130. doi:10.1007/s00426-015-0709-2

Roommate picture: From Me

Bouba-Kiki picture: https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/media-guide-the-bouba-kiki-effect/

Both Face Stimuli pictures: Barton and Halberstadh (cited above)

In Paris, I witnessed my first professional ballet performance with Le Lac des cygnes, or Swan Lake, performed by the Universal Ballet company.

Both the dancing and the music were incredibly beautiful, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the grace of the dancers and the harmony of the music.

Which is why I can understand how audiences in the 1900s must have been shocked after listening to Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring right after a delightful traditional ballet like Swan Lake. In class, we learned about how Stravinsky’s orchestral and ballet piece debuted in 1913, surprising audiences and causing such strong emotions that in early performances the audiences actually began rioting in the theater. If you listen to it yourself, you can understand how the melody is the furthest from graceful or traditional—if you can even locate what you think is the melody, that is. Personally, I found it very uncomfortable to listen to at first, and I felt my heart rate pick up slightly—and I have heard a lot of weird things! Even though audiences were scandalized when it first came out, by 1981 this piece was popular enough to be incorporated into a famous animated movie called Fantasia, where it was paired with the animations of the Big Bang, dinosaurs fighting in the rain, and then their extinction. (My description doesn’t do it justice, so check out an excerpt here)

Screenshot from the dino fight

The reason why I found this interesting is that I have a crippling fear of dinosaurs–even though I should be an adult, I am still terrified of creatures that no longer exist on this planet and that I will never encounter. But this had me wondering: like many other people, I watched all the Fantasia movies when I was younger. Could my fear of dinosaurs stem from the fact that as a child, I watched this Rite of Spring segment and was scared by the music, but then associated it with what I was seeing on the screen—dinosaurs? Or in the words of Wong et al. (2019), “How does a stimulus never associated with danger become frightening?”

In their recent study, they discuss the concept of how your sensory and emotional experiences share common elements that can overlap. Their example is of a hiker in a rainforest: on the first day, the hiker hears an unfamiliar sound and sees an unfamiliar animal. If the next day the hiker sees that unfamiliar animal on a poster labeled “extremely dangerous”, then when the hiker hears that unfamiliar sound, they may become scared even though they were never directly conditioned to be afraid of the sound. To investigate this phenomenon, they tested how rats can integrate a “sound-light” memory with a “light-danger” memory. They did this by mimicking the hiker scenario: they first exposed the mice to a sound and a light, then a light and a shock, followed by the official testing of the sound and light separately to observe the fear response in the mouse.

They found that the mice showed fear in response to the sound, even though the sound was never associated with shock. In addition, they discovered that this process of association likely takes place in the perirhinal cortex, as rats who were damaged in this area of the brain were not able to associate the sound with danger. They concluded that stimuli could be associated together in a fear memory network, and that memories stored in one region of the brain can be retrieved with information elsewhere in the brain in a process called “memory-chaining” (Wong et al., 2019). It would be helpful, however, if they had done more testing to see whether this effect is observed for all associations, or whether there are some situations where this associative “memory-chaining” does not occur.

Furthermore, another study by Soeter and Kindt (2015) presented data that also supports this conclusion, but specifically investigating reconsolidation of memories—a critical aspect of memory formation and retrieval. They viewed any fear memory as a “flexible representation of the original learning experience”, and therefore tested what types of cues could trigger fear memory. They found that even abstract cues that are not directly associated with a potentially dangerous stimulus could trigger reconsolidation of memories (Soeter & Kindt, 2015), which provides another perspective towards fear learning and fear associations. These studies were particularly interesting as their results have implications in conditions such as anxiety disorders, as they often involve learned fear associations. By understanding the connections and conditions for consolidation and retrieval of these fear memories, the foundation of knowledge for future research grows and can lead to the development of potential therapies.

I’m still not sure about whether my fear of dinosaurs were from my association of the fear I felt hearing the Rite of Spring and seeing the dinosaurs, but with this study it seems like it could be possible. Still, definitely staying away from any Jurassic Park remakes for now!

Soeter M, Kindt M (2015) Retrieval cues that trigger reconsolidation of associative fear memory are not necessarily an exact replica of the original learning experience. Front. Behav. Nerosci. 9:112.

Wong FS, Westbrook RF, Holmes NM (2019) ‘Online’ integration of sensory and fear memories in the rat medial temporal lobe. eLife. 8:e47085.

Image 1 taken by me

Image 2 from http://quixotando.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/the-rite-of-spring-349.jpg?w=1024

Image 3 from Wong et al (2019)

During everyday life, its easy to take language for granted. You go about your day able to almost seamlessly communicate with others. However, when you’re in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, it’s impossible not to notice. Language becomes a thing you think about every day, trying to pick up words and hoping you’re pronouncing the words correctly. When we were talking about animal language in class, it made me wonder why do we have such an advanced way of communicating with each other. We had learned about various ways that animals communicate in some of my previous classes, however, humans have always found a difference in our language that we believe makes it unique. So, what is it that allows us to have the ability to create complex languages?

Picture of me on the phone. Picture credits: Genevieve Wilson

Lai et al. (2001) found that the Foxp2 gene plays a large role in our ability to speak by studying the DNA of people who had a language disorder. According to Schreiweis et al. (2019), the gene is found in throughout many species of animals, however, humans have a slightly different version of it. In order to study the effects of the difference, they altered the gene in mice to resemble the human version and compared them to mice with the normal mouse gene. They found that the human version of the gene caused more neurons to express Foxp2 than the normal mouse version did in areas where there was a lot of expression. However, they also found that in areas of the brain without a lot of Foxp2 expression, the human version caused even less expression than the normal mouse gene did.

Castellucci et al. (2016) also studied the effects of Foxp2 in mice, however, they studied the effects of getting rid of the gene instead. Because mice who don’t have the gene at all end up dying as juveniles, they studied mice with only one copy of the gene and its impacts on mating calls. They found that the mice with only one copy of Foxp2 didn’t produce sounds longer than 75 ms while the mice with both copies did. They also found that the mice with only one copy of the gene produced more consistent sounds than the mice with both copies.

All of this was super interesting, but mice are a little different from people. So, what is it that Foxp2 does in people? For obvious reasons, there haven’t been experiments with Foxp2 in humans but there have been more studies done on the family that Lai et al (2001) studied. For example, Schulze et al. (2018) used this family to study Foxp2’s effects on working memory, or the memory of what just happened. They first gave both the family members with the mutation and controls with the normal gene an IQ test. They then did various memory tests such as giving them a sentence, asking them to say if it was true or false, then asking them to repeat the last word. They found that the people with the altered Foxp2 gene did worse on the tasks than the control participants did. This could indicate that language is important in our working memory or that the Foxp2 gene also plays a role in working memory. Emmorey et al. (2017) also looked at the association between working memory and language, but without looking at the Foxp2 gene. They studied 3 groups of people: monolingual English speakers, deaf American Sign Language speakers, and people who spoke both languages. They had the participants perform various tasks such as being shown a simple picture, for example a letter, and having to remember which direction it was facing. They found that the way that you speak does have an impact on how you remember things, but most of their results seemed to apply to how you remember language.

The idea that language could impact memory was fascinating, but human experiments can’t prove a cause. Schreiweis et al. (2014) did an experiment in mice where they compared mice with the human version of Foxp2 with the wildtype mice. They trained the two groups of mice to a maze and found the human version of the gene did impact the mice’s learning. However, they said that the reason for the change still wasn’t known. Language obviously plays a large role in human cultures; however, it seems like there is still a lot that is unclear about how we are able to talk. It’s crazy how much one gene can impact our ability to communicate with one another. However, I think for now I would settle for learning some other languages instead of understanding language itself.

Works Cited

Castellucci, G. A., Mcginley, M. J., & Mccormick, D. A. (2016). Knockout of Foxp2 disrupts vocal development in mice. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 1-12. doi:10.1038/srep23305

Emmorey, K., Giezen, M. R., Petrich, J., Spurgeon, E., & O’Grady Farnady, L. (2017). The relation between working memory and language comprehension in signers and speakers. Acta psychologica, 177, 69–77. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.04.014

Lai, C. S., Fisher, S. E., Hurst, J. A., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Monaco, A. P. (2001). A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature, 413, 519-523. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/35097076

Schreiweis, C., Bornschein, U., Burguière, E., Kerimoglu, C., Schreiter, S., Dannemann, M., … Graybiel, A. M. (2014). Humanized Foxp2 accelerates learning by enhancing transitions from declarative to procedural performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(39), 14253–14258. doi:10.1073/pnas.1414542111

Schreiweis, C., Irinopoulou, T., Vieth, B., Laddada, L., Oury, F., Burguiere, E., . . . Groszer, M. (2019). Mice carrying a humanized Foxp2 knock-in allele show region-specific shifts of striatal Foxp2 expression levels. Cortex. doi:10.1101/514893

Schulze, K., Vargha-Khadem, F., & Mishkin, M. (2018). Phonological working memory and FOXP2. Neuropsychologia, 108, 147–152. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.027

Photos:

Me on the phone. [Personal photograph taken in Paris apartment]. (2019, June 28).

Taken by Genevieve Wilson

When I was a little kid, my favorite book was Philippe in Monet’s Garden, a picture book about a frog who escapes a Parisian frog catcher and finds a home on the famous painter’s estate. When I was a few years older, I marveled at the beautiful paintings of the waterlilies in Monet’s pond. Needless to say, I was thrilled to take a day trip to Giverny and see for myself the iconic place that has enthralled me for years. The grounds of Monet’s home did not disappoint; I consider this outing to be one of my favorite things I have done in France.

The cover of my favorite children’s book, Philippe in Monet’s Garden by Lisa Jobe Carmack and Lisa Canney Chesaux.

Despite my love for all of the art that originating from that special place, while walking through the gardens I wasn’t thinking about paintings or talking frogs; I was swept up in the beauty of it all. It’s not everyday you find yourself in a place so dense in natural beauty, but even the parks around Emory seem to have this soothing effect on me.

A number of scientific studies have set out to explore this phenomenon that I have observed. Large scale studies of different populations have concluded that people who live close to nature, whether it be Monet’s gardens or Piedmont park, tend to be happier and experience less mental distress than those who live in more urbanized areas (White et al., 2013; Shanahan et al., 2015). Another experiment in 2012 found that patients with various mental health disorders reported higher mood and self-esteem when they participated in nature walks compared to indoor exercise (Barton et al., 2012). Since access to nature can serve as both a preventative measure and a component of treatment, it seems to be an excellent candidate for further public health research.

Me in Monet’s garden, and just as happy as Philippe to be there! Giverny, France

But what is it about nature that has such a profound effect on us? The primary shortcoming in proposals to incorporate nature into public health initiatives is a poor understanding of what kind of natural experience is helpful (Hartig et al., 2014; Shanahan et al., 2015). Since the rise of urbanization, human beings have lost much of the connection with nature we once had; in order to optimize an effort to bring the health effects of nature to cities, we need to better understand the mechanisms of these effects (White et al., 2013; Shanahan et al., 2015). Current research tends to focus on the visual system, but my walk in Giverny was about more than the sights; the smell of the flowers, the sound of the wind in the vines, and the warmth of the sun on my back all contributed to my experience. A recent attempt to translate nature into a mental health treatment failed for this very reason; participants viewing a simulated natural environment reported less stress reduction than controls who were in the actual outside environment and complained of a disconnect from “real nature” (Kjellgren & Buhrkall, 2010). A multi-sensory system study on the effects of nature could help bridge the gap between the clear benefits to be had and the best method to adapt them to an increasingly urban world (Franco et al., 2017).

The sounds of nature are considered to be especially pleasing; people prefer the sounds of nature to those of a city and many buy recordings of natural sounds to help them relax or sleep (Yang & Kang, 2007; Alvarsson et al., 2010). A group of researchers wanted to test the effect of natural sounds on stress levels after a challenging task by measuring skin conductance levels (a well known measure of stress) in a group that was played bird song and a group that was played other noises (Alvarsson et al., 2010; Cummings et al., 2007). They found that participants who were played nature sounds recovered faster from the stress of the task than groups who were played generic noise. This is only one experiment of many documenting the positive effects of nature sounds, but it demonstrates that there is a potential for auditory stimulation to become a part of alternative mental health treatment regimens.

The olfactory system is also plays an important role in a holistic experience of nature. The smells of nature can help to immerse us in an outdoor experience, and it has been demonstrated that certain odors evoke emotional responses (Glass et al., 2014; Franco et al., 2017). The popularity of essential oils as a natural remedy attests to this fact.

My dog Ruby knows a little something about the positive effects of floral odors on mood. Emory University, GA

A 1998 study used an EEG to measure the effects of relaxing and alerting (lavender and rosemary respectively) essential oils on the brains of participants. The EEGs showed that participants who smelled the lavender exhibited more alpha and beta bands, a measure of relaxation, than they did before exposure. Participants who smelled the rosemary exhibited fewer alpha and beta bands than they did before exposure, indicating alertness. These results were supported by self-reporting from the participants and an anxiety questionnaire (Diego et al., 1998). The exact underlying mechanisms of these effects remain unclear, but suggest that olfaction is a key piece to the positive mood effects created by spending time in nature.

In isolation, each of these sensory systems has been demonstrated to contribute in some manner to the mental health of the test subject. In nature, we are experiencing sensory input to all of these systems and more, all at once. It would certainly be difficult to encapsulate all of these factors into an artificial natural environment in a setting like a hospital, but the research certainly makes a compelling case for the inclusion of parks or other natural environments in cities. In the meantime, my walk through Monet’s gardens was the refreshing stress relief I needed to finish up this study abroad program on a high note, and I’ll be making a concerted effort to find an equally inspiring spot back in Atlanta.

Works Cited

Alvarsson JJ, Wiens S, Nilsson ME (2010) Stress Recovery during Exposure to Nature Sound and Environmental Noise. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 7(3): 1036–1046

Barton J, Griffin M, Pretty J (2012) Exercise-, nature- and socially interactive-based initiatives improve mood and self-esteem in the clinical population. Perspect Public Health 132(2): 89-96

Cummings ME, El-Sheikh M, Kouros CD, Keller PS (2007) Children’s skin conductance reactivity as a mechanism of risk in the context of parental depressive symptoms. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry 48(5): 436-445

Diego MA, Jones NA, Field T, Hernandez-reif M, Schanberg S, Kuhn C, Galamaga M, McAdam V, Galamaga R (1998) Aromatherapy Positively Affects Mood, EEG Patterns of Alertness and Math Computations. International Journal of Neuroscience 96(3-4): 217-224

*Franco LS, Shanahan DF, Fuller RA (2017) A Review of the Benefits of Nature Experiences: More Than Meets the Eye. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 14(864): doi:10.3390/ijerph14080864

*Glass ST, Lingg E, Heuberger E (2014) Do ambient urban odors evoke basic emotions? Frontiers in Psychology 5(340): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00340

Hartig T, Mitchell R, de Vries S, Frumkin H (2014) Nature and health. Annual Review of Public Health 35: 207-228

Kjellgren A & Buhrkall H (2010) A comparison of the restorative effect of a natural environment with that of a simulated natural environment. Journal of Environmental Psychology 30(4): 464-472

Shanahan DF, Fuller RA, Bush R, Lin BB, Gaston KJ (2015) The Health Benefits of Urban Nature: How Much Do We Need? BioScience 65(5): 476-485

White MP, Alcock I, Wheeler BW, Depledge MH (2013) Would You Be Happier Living in a Greener Urban Area? A Fixed-Effects Analysis of Panel Data. Psychological Science 24(6): 920-928

Yang W & Kang J (2007) Soundscape and Sound Preferences in Urban Squares: A Case Study in Sheffield. Journal of Urban Design 10(1): 61-80

* Indicates that an article was published online, and DOI is given in place of page numbers

(Ramachandran, 2004)

Let’s start off with this famous experiment done by neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001). They asked American college undergraduates and Tamil Speakers in India “which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?” What do you think?

Did you pick the right one as “bouba” and the left one as “Kiki”? Yes, your instinct was correct. 95% to 98% of subjects responded the same way as you just did (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001). Another group of researchers tested this similar question to toddlers. The finding was that the associations of “kiki” to jagged shapes and “bouba” to rounded shapes were consistent even prior to language development (Maurer et al., 2006). These results suggested that no matter the test subjects were different native languages speakers or very young children, people were always able to make this association.

Ramachandran and Hubbard reasoned that because of the sharp form of the visual shape, subjects tended to map the name “kiki” onto the left figure, and because of the rounded auditory sound, subjects tended to map the name “bouba” onto the right figure (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001). Other researchers have proposed that perhaps this effect happened because when you say “bouba”, your mouth makes a more rounded shape, whereas when you say “kiki”, your mouth makes a more angular shape (D’Onofrio, 2014). It has also been suggested that this Bouba-Kiki effect (BK effect) could occur through cognitive mechanisms similar to those that underlie synesthesia (Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001), the phenomenon in which someone experienced sensation in a particular modality (hearing, for example) when a different modality was stimulated (seeing a particular color, for example). To sum up, one thing that scientists agreed on was that in order for the BK effect to take place, some sort of integration of shapes and sound occurred in the brain (Spence and Deroy, 2013).

All these explanations made sense, right? But after learning about all BK effect in Dr. O’Toole’s class, I was still curious about how and where these integration processes happened in my brain when I selected “bouba” to the right figure and “kiki” to the left figure. To investigate this phenomenon one step further, two neuroscientists from Sorbonne University in Paris published their study using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) (Peiffer-Smadja and Cohen, 2019).

These researchers had two questions in mind. Question #1: did this integration of shapes and sounds occur at an automatic or a controlled level? In other words, would participants show a BK effect even when no explicit judgment was required on audio-visual matching? Question #2: did this integration take place in our sensory cortices or in our supramodal regions (areas of the brain that have abstract functions to more one type of sensory input)?

In order to test the first question, the researchers designed a task called Implicit Association Test (IAT). The underlying trick is that responses are supposed to be faster and more accurate when concepts are strongly associated. In this case, we would predict that the response to be faster and more accurate whenever “kiki” sounds were paired with spiky shapes (congruent block) than whenever “kiki” sounds were paired with rounded shapes (incongruent block).

For each trial, participants were simultaneously presented with a pseudoword and a shape. The participants in this task were asked to decide if the pseudoword contained the sound “o” or the sound “i”. Then they had to decide if the shape was round or spiky. As anticipated, responses were faster and more accurate in congruent blocks than in incongruent blocks. This experiment was a clever twist to the traditional “BK” experiment. Here, the participants were never explicitly asked about matching the shapes and sounds. Still, the bouba-kiki sound-shape association had an impact on their behavior even when it was irrelevant to the task. The persistence of the BK effect even in this setting suggested that it may came at least in part from automatic perceptual stages of stimulus processing, which was separated from attention and task-related influences. The first mystery was solved.

Next, using fMRI, the authors were looking for which brain regions were activated when the subjects performed implicit BK matching tasks. Participants were simply asked to pay attention to both visual and auditory stimuli when sometimes the pairs were matching (bouba-round) and sometimes the pairs were mismatching (bouba-spiky). They found that cross-modal matching influenced activations in both auditory and visual sensory cortices. Moreover, they found higher activation in the prefrontal cortex to mismatching stimuli than to matching stimuli. Taken together, when the pairs were matching, the visual cortex (where visual information is processed by the brain) and the auditory cortex (where auditory information is processed by the brain) showed more activation. On the contrary, when the pairs were mismatching, prefrontal cortex showed more activation.

(Neuro4Kidz , 2018)
The prefrontal cortex is the front part of the frontal lobe and has been implicated in cognitive behavior planning, personality expression, decision making and social behavior (Yang and Raine, 2009).

(Broda-Bahm, 2013)

So, what could we conclude from these findings? Results indicated that BK matching had an effect on the early stages in sensory processing, while mismatching had an effect on the later stages of supramodal processing. As a follow-up, the authors hypothesized that the crossmodal BK effect perhaps was modulating the executive processes (processes that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior) in the prefrontal cortex.

Bear in mind that these conclusions should be taken as preliminary findings. The common problem with fMRI study is that a structure active for a task does not mean it is critical for the task. So, the only certain inference we can make from the study is that prefrontal activation is related with part of the integration processes of BK effect. In the scientific literature, mechanisms involved in cross-modal integration is currently not well-understood (Peiffer-Smadja and Cohen, 2019). For hundreds of years, we have been investigating how our brain processes sensory information. And this BK effect perhaps now provides us a unique window to look into how our brain combines all these sensory information and create a coherent picture of how we perceive the world around us.

Works Cited

Broda-Bahm, K. (2013, April 8). Ban the Bullet (From Your Slides). Retrieved from Persuasive Litigator: https://www.persuasivelitigator.com/2013/04/ban-the-bullet-from-your-slides.html

Neuro4Kidz . (2018, June 2). Build that Prefrontal Lobe up. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/@rohanpoosala/build-that-prefrontal-lobe-up-c72434186dfd

D’Onofrio A (2014) Phonetic Detail and Dimensionality in Sound-shape Correspondences: Refining the Bouba-Kiki Paradigm. 57:367-393.

Maurer D, Pathman T, Mondloch CJ (2006) The shape of boubas: sound–shape correspondences in toddlers and adults. 9:316-322.

Peiffer-Smadja N, Cohen L (2019) The cerebral bases of the bouba-kiki effect. NeuroImage 186:679-689.

Ramachandran V, Hubbard E (2001) Synaesthesia—A Window Into Perception, Thought and Language.

Ramachandran VS (2004) A brief tour of human consciousness: From impostor poodles to purple numbers. New York, NY, US: Pi Press, an imprint of Pearson Technology Group.

Spence C, Deroy O (2013) How automatic are crossmodal correspondences? Consciousness and Cognition 22:245-260.

Yang Y, Raine A (2009) Prefrontal structural and functional brain imaging findings in antisocial, violent, and psychopathic individuals: a meta-analysis. Psychiatry Res 174:81-88.

A lone man playing the electric guitar in a small living room. As he plays each individual chord, he begins to describe a scene similar to those of painting. A swirl of blue and green here, a swirl of yellow there, each individual chord contributing towards the tapestry of sound like an individual paint stroke in a grand painting. The phenomenon this man is going through is known to the scientific community as synesthesia. 

Painting Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky: the painting is said to reflect the experience Kandinsky had while listening to a symphony

Synesthesia is a neurological condition where the activation of one sensation often leads to an involuntary activation of another sensory sensation (Asher et.al, 2009). It is stated to affect around two to four percent of the world’s population, with many famous artists and musicians such as Wassily Kandinsky and Kanye West suggested to have this particular sensory phenomenon. So while this seems all well and good, but now you are probably asking what the deal is with the man that I mentioned in the beginning. Well, that man I was describing, in the beginning, happens to be my older cousin.

My cousin has a subclass of synesthesia classified as chromesthesia. Whenever he hears sounds such as music, he often sees flashes of color within his field of vision. He described the phenomenon of being like his own individual superpower, where he could see the world in his own unique way, and science seems to back up his own individual statement. A study conducted by Ward and company in 2017 found that when scientists look at the V4 part of the visual cortex (which is stated to be responsible for object recognition) shows that individuals with synesthesia showed greater visual performance compared to the general public (Ward et.al 2017). As a common individual, I always wondered what it would be like to see through my cousin’s eyes. After experiencing a multitude of sounds here in Paris, from the roar of the metro to a local philharmonic orchestra playing in Luxembourg garden, a new question began to pop into my head, why didn’t I have this condition? What was the underlying mechanism behind this phenomenon that allowed my cousin to develop this ability and I wasn’t?

A local orchestra performance was done in Luxembourg Garden in Paris: how would it look to someone with synesthesia?

While many methods such as specific types of drugs and hypnotic techniques have been noted to develop a false synesthetic like experience researchers call “artificial synesthesia”, the main underlying factor within the development of synesthesia seems to focus on a genetic influence (Deroy and Spence, 2013). A study conducted by Barnett and company in 2008 investigated the familial patterns of those who developed synesthesia. By conducting a systematic survey of 53 measured synaesthetic, it was found that nearly 42 percent of those who participated in this survey reported a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) who also was a synesthetic (Barnett et.al, 2008). What was interesting about this was that these first-degree synesthetic individuals did not necessarily share the exact same type of synesthesia, but may actually have different subsets. This research reflects the idea of synesthesia being a hereditary trait within immediate family members. This idea of the heritability of synesthesia is further supported when we look at the genetic markers underlying synaesthetic.

An investigation done by Asher and company in 2009 set out to understand the genetic influence that may underlie the development of synesthesia. Asher began his investigation by looking at a large group of 43 families of synesthetes recruited from the Cambridge Synaesthesia Research Group database (196 total participants, 121 who were affected, 68 unaffected and 7 unknown). After analyzing the genetic information of all individuals, it was suggested that four chromosomes (labeled 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12) were said to hold evidence of genetic linkages (Asher et.al 2009). What this means is that these genes were identified to have been inherited together within families of those who have synesthesia. 

While this information suggests a strong heritable cause for the development of synesthesia, the effect seems to be limited to those of immediate family members. Second-degree relationships like those between me and my cousin do not seem to reflect any correlation in terms of synesthetic heritability. While my cousin and I have been as close as brothers since as long as I could remember, it seems that our genetic code seems to keep me away from experiencing the sounds of the worlds in his eyes.

Although I may not be able to see the world through a near superhuman form of vision, it doesn’t change the amazement that this could mean towards the development of future generations. With synesthesia showing a strong genetic heritability, who knows, maybe this superhuman-like ability may be the visionary way to experience the world in the future.

References:
Asher, J. E., Lamb, J. A., Brocklebank, D., Cazier, J. B., Maestrini, E., Addis, L.,Monaco, A. P. et.al (2009). A whole-genome scan and fine-mapping linkage study of auditory-visual synesthesia reveals evidence of linkage to chromosomes 2q24, 5q33, 6p12, and 12p12. American journal of human genetics, 84(2), 279–285. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.01.012

Barnett K, Finucane C, Asher J, Bargary G, Corvin A, Newell F, et al. (2008) Familial patterns and the origins of individual differences in synaesthesia. Cognition. 2008;106(2):871‐893. 10.1016/j.cognition.

Deroy, O., & Spence, C. (2013). Training, hypnosis, and drugs: artificial synaesthesia, or artificial paradises?. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 660. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00660

Roe, A. W., Chelazzi, L., Connor, C. E., Conway, B. R., Fujita, I., Gallant, J. L., Vanduffel, W. et.al (2012). Toward a unified theory of visual area V4. Neuron, 74(1), 12–29. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.03.011

Ward J, Rothen N, Chang A., et al. (2017) The structure of inter-individual differences in visual ability: evidence from the general population and synaesthesia. Vis Research;141: 293–302.

Image 1: https://www.overstockart.com/painting/composition-vii-1913

Image 2: Taken by me