Personification, Synaesthesia, and Social Cognition

Defining synaesthesia has proven to be a challenging task as the number of synaesthesia variants and associated phenomena reported by synaesthetes has increased over the past decade or so. This chapter discusses the inclusion of non-sensory concurrents in the category of synaesthesia. For example, many grapheme-colour synaesthetes also attribute gender and personality to letters and numbers consistently and involuntarily. Here we assess the question of including synaesthetic personification as a type of synaesthesia. We also discuss the relationship between synaesthetic personification and other instances of personification and mentalizing. We hope to convince readers that whether or not they embrace atypical forms of personification as a synaesthesia variant, studying the phenomenon is a worthwhile effort that could yield novel insights into human cognition and brain function.