Research

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which a stimulus in one sense causes a second sensation in a separate sense, or a separate aspect of the same sense. For example, some synaesthetes see colours and shapes when they hear music, while others taste the words they speak.

My PhD research concentrated on number-colour synaesthesia, in which the sight of a number causes an illusory sensation of colour. I am also interested in visuo-spatial forms, in which sequences take on spatial locations. During my PhD, I investigated how these two forms of synaesthesia might be able to inform our understanding of typical cognition.

My research at the University of East London deals with the mental imagery capacities of synaesthetes, and (more recently) the links synaesthetes make between number and space.

More information about synaesthesia can be found at the University of Sussex synaesthesia research group website (www.syn.sussex.ac.uk), where you can also volunteer to take part in our research if you have synaesthesia.