Synaesthesia: Visual search and episodic memory

Do synesthetes have a general advantage in visual search and episodic memory? 
By Nicolas Rothen and Beat Meier


The aim of the study was to test the hypothesis that suggested that synesthetes have an advantage in visual search and episodic memory. I started by researchig what these two things were so that I could understand all of the findings that are presented.

Episodic memory is a person's unique memory of a specific event, so it will be different from someone else's recollection of the same experience. Episodic memory is sometimes confused with autobiographical memory, and while autobiographical memory involves episodic memory, it also relies on semantic memory.
Visual search is a type of perceptual task requiring attention that typically involves an active scan of the visual environment for a particular object or feature (the target) among other objects or features (the distractors).

Methodology
- 13 grapheme-colour synesthetes
- compared their performance on a visual search task and a memory test 
Conclusions
For the visual task, the group means showed a tendency towards a performance benefit for the group of synesthetes. 
For the episodic memory test, there was no evidence for a performance benefit for synesthetes in the present study.