Here we present a survey of the prevalence and associated characteristics of tickertaping in a Norwegian sample of normal adults. Recently, Bastiampillai, Dhillon, and Chui ( 2014) reported tickertaping - experienced since childhood - in an adult psychiatric patient, and speculated whether this may have been causally associated with a temporal lobe cyst diagnosed in late adolescence. Interestingly, at least some of the proficient backward speakers whose skills are reported in popular media (e.g., YouTube) also report that this is related to effortless word visualization. Note that O was presented as an example of unusual visual imagery, rather than synesthesia. Coltheart and Glick ( 1974) described another case study of O, a young female with vivid non-colored word visualization who was proficient at speaking backward and showed good ability to spell whole sentences backward. Her tickertaping is associated with accurate and effortless enumeration of letters in long words, and of words in sentences, that was formally shown to be exceptionally fast in laboratory studies (mean RTs of zВ =В в€’3.1 and в€’3.2 respectively, compared to 22 control participants). For longer words, or sentences, her subtitles move right to left in imaginal space. Price and Mykland ( 2013) outlined an unpublished single-case study of AM, a female tickertaper in her early twenties who vividly experiences non-colored visualized text when she hears words, speaks, or thinks verbally. Unpublished work by Linn, Hancock, Simner, and Akeroyd ( 2008) claimed above-average spelling, digit span, and detection of degraded speech in a group of 12 tickertapers.

However, uncolored tickertaping can occur in the absence of grapheme-color synesthesia (Chun & HupГ©, 2013).ДЇew empirical studies of tickertaping have been conducted. Within this literature, tickertaping is usually described among grapheme-color synesthetes who sometimes visualize heard words in the same letter-colors that they routinely experience for read words (e.g., Simner, 2007).

More recently there have been passing references to tickertaping in the synesthesia literature and online forums, where the phenomenon has been referred to as tickertape synesthesia (Cytowic & Eagleman, 2009 Simner, Mayo, & Spiller, 2009) because an extra visual dimension to sensory experience is cross-modally induced by auditory input in an involuntary manner. Qualitative descriptions date at least as far back as Galton ( 1883). The analogy of mental subtitles is often used, and the phenomenon is now usually referred to as tickertape experience (e.g., Chun & HupГ©, 2013). Some people report routinely visualizing the orthographic appearance of words that they hear, so that listening to speech induces a band of visualized text in their mindвЂ™s eye. We suggest tickertaping is an explicit expression of the close interconnection between phonemic and graphemic representations of words which, for reasons we do not yet understand, manifests as visual imagery with a varying degree of automaticity. However visualization of letters was predominantly uncolored, indicating that tickertaping is a phenomenon in its own right and not just a subset of grapheme-color synesthesia. The qualitative character of tickertaping varied among respondents, and included negative experiences. We also found no strong evidence that tickertapers are unusually likely to self-report skill in rapidly enumerating heard words, or in backward spelling and backward speaking, despite the fact that these skills have been observed in single-case studies of tickertapers. Tickertaping was not strongly associated with greater awareness of an inner voice while reading silently. While strongly automatic tickertaping appeared rare ( nВ =В 6 CI 95В =В 0.6% to 3.2% of sample), lesser degrees of text visualization were reported by more than half of respondents, indicating a continuity between extreme tickertaping and normal cognition. Our questionnaire was designed to reflect different degrees of automaticity of the experience. We report a survey, among 425 Norwegian adults from varied sub-samples, of the prevalence, character, and associated skills of tickertaping. It has been observed in grapheme-color synesthetes, whose letter visualizations are colored, but has been very little studied. Tickertape experience is the subjective phenomenon of routinely visualizing the orthographic appearance of words that one hears, speaks, or thinks, like mental subtitles in the mindвЂ™s eye.

Type and hear words spoken