Long-term memory
Do people with color synesthesia have better visual memory?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Synesthetes show a subtle visual memory advantage for abstract, colorless patterns, but this difference is only clear when compared to older adults rather than their peers.
Key findings
Young synesthetes and young adults learned the pairings in fewer attempts than older adults, requiring about 3.21 and 3.64 runs respectively, compared to 7.93 runs for the older group. Synesthetes performed significantly better than older adults on difficult, dissimilar pairings during retrieval, showing a large effect size of 1.08 immediately after learning. However, young synesthetes did not show a statistically significant memory advantage over their same-age peers.
Methodology
Researchers tested groups of 14 young synesthetes, 14 young adults, and 14 older adults. Participants memorized pairs of colorless, complex fractal designs that were either visually similar or dissimilar. They completed a self-paced learning program over multiple rounds until they reached an accuracy target of 7 out of 8 correct matches on successive blocks, followed by memory tests immediately and after a 30-minute delay.
Limitations
To begin with, the study's small sample size of 14 people per group limits its statistical power, meaning some medium-sized differences between groups could not be reliably confirmed. Additionally, because synesthetes were aware they were recruited specifically for their condition, motivational differences might have influenced their performance compared to control groups. Lastly, the findings only apply to visual fractal associations and do not prove whether synesthetes would excel in other types of non-visual memory tasks.
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