What is it about?

This study is the first to test a device specifically designed for people with synaesthesia; a colourful calculator. The calculator, which can be personalised to display a user's colour-number associations, was overwhelmingly liked by the participants with synaesthesia and objectively improved some of their efficiency.

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Why is it important?

This work is important for two main reasons. Specifically, it is the first demonstration of a valuable tool for people with grapheme-colour synesthesia – a trait that interacts with 1 - 2 % of the population's reading, writing, and arithmetic. More generally, it provides a concrete demonstration of how understanding the diversity of subjective experience (underpinned by neurodiversity) can allow for the better design of everyday tools.

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This page is a summary of: Sharing the load: How a personally coloured calculator for grapheme-colour synaesthetes can reduce processing costs, PLoS ONE, September 2021, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257713.
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