Does synaesthesia lead to better memory capacities?
One can read in many books and newspaper articles that synaesthetes have superior memory abilities [2]. Do they really? Yaro and Ward [3] surveyed 46 synaesthetes: persons had to estimate, if their memory abilities are a) better than the average, b) like the average or c) worse than the average. 70% of them believed that their memory abilities were better than the mean. In a second task 16 synaesthetes and 16 matched controls had to pass for several memory tests: for example they had to recall words they heard remember digits from colored matrices and copy freely complex figures. Synaesthetes only showed a “minimal” better memory performance in recalling words but not in memorizing digits or copying complex figures. Similar studies did not reveal any difference between synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes in episodic memory. The conclusion they draw is that synaesthesia per se does not lead to a better memory. They explained individual differences by using synaesthesia as mnemonic strateg
