Week 11 Annotated Bibliographies

State your research question:

            Can synesthesia be taught through learning?

Provide your citation in APA style:

Bor, D., Rothen, N., Schwartzman, D. J., Clayton, S., & Seth, A. K. (2014). Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences. Scientific Reports,4, 7089. doi:10.1038/srep07089

Descriptive annotation:

The aim of this study was to see if people who currently do not experience synesthesia could be trained to induce grapheme-color synesthesia themselves through extensive training. In the article, a study was conducted on 14 individuals who have not experienced synesthesia. The participants went under several tests for 9 weeks by associating words or letters with color. Results indicated, grapheme-color synesthesia can be induced however, most participants reported a loss of gained abilities after 3 months.

Evaluative annotation:

·       Is the article written within a reasonable time span for your topic? (Currency)

Yes, the article is very current because it was only published 2-3 years ago.

·       How does the article connect with your research question? (Relevance)

It literally is testing my research question. However, there needs to be future research because the sample size used was very small and should be much bigger to draw significant results.

·       What are the author's credentials? Is there evidence that they are an authority on this topic? (Authority/credibility)

Yes, many of the authors worked in the appropriate fields. Some of the fields include: psychology, informatics, and consciousness science.

·       How would you describe the article's viewpoint and research methods? (Please indicate the academic discipline along with any biases you perceive.) If the article expresses an argument or opinion, do you agree with it? Why or why not? (Authority/viewpoint)

The article’s viewpoint was factual and informative however, its research methods needs some improvement. As mentioned before, the sample size was too small. Finding other articles that support this viewpoint would be needed.

·       Based on what you’ve read and what you know, do you think this article is truthful about facts? Can they be verified from other sources? Have statistics or quotations been distorted or taken out of context? (Accuracy)

The study would be more accurate if the sample size was much larger. A sample size of 14 does not produce very significant meaning to the results but the study does shine a brighter light on the possibility of learning synesthesia.

·       What is the scope of this article? Does it answer a specific question? Who is the audience for an article like this? (Purpose)

The goal was to answer the question on if synesthesia could be trained, or learned. It turns out, synesthesia can be taught and learned but the effects do not last long. Indicating further study for lasting techniques.