Synesthetes are More Involved in Art — Evidence From the Artistic Creativity Domains Compendium (ACDC)

Abstract

Creativity is a multidimensional, multistage, and time-dependent process, which can be expressed in various artistic domains and sub-domains (e.g., visual arts, literature, music, and performing arts). The present study investigated the involvement of synesthetes in art, and whether the type of synesthesia determines the preferred artistic domain. We tested 709 participants with either grapheme-color, sound-color, or sequence-space synesthesia (monotypical synesthesia) or a combination thereof (multiple synesthesia) and non-synesthete controls with the Artistic Creativity Domains Compendium (ACDC). The ACDC measures the involvement in art on the three levels “interest,” “ability,” and “performance” for the four domains “visual arts,” “literature,” “music,” and “performing arts.” Overall, the results showed that synesthetes have an affinity for all four artistic domains compared with non-synesthete controls. Moreover, the presence of multiple types of synesthesia affected the specific preference. Besides, compared with monotoypical synesthetes, the group of grapheme-color-sound-color-and-sequence-space synesthetes showed higher involvement in all artistic domains, most pronounced in visual arts. Overall, the study demonstrates that synesthesia is associated with higher interest, ability, and performance in art.