Dr. Edward M. Hubbard

Vanderbilt University, Department of Psychology and Human Development

Recognized contributor

• Synesthesia
• (2008) Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, David Brang

I am currently a post-doctoral researcher with Bruce McCandliss at Vanderbilt University studying numerical cognition and synesthesia. Prior to my current post, I was a post-doctoral fellow with Stanislas Dehaene at INSERM Unit 562. I received my PhD from the University of California, San Diego working with V.S. Ramachandran and Geoffrey Boynton at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Before that, I did my undergraduate studies in cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley.

My main areas of research include:

• Synesthesia: In particular, grapheme-color synesthesia in which letters and numbers elicit colors. This research has been published both in specialist journals such as Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, Neuron, Cortex and the Journal of Consciousness Studies, and in the propular press, including in Scientific American and Scientific American Mind. I am also a founding member of the American Synesthesia Association, and served to help organize several conferences and symposia on topics relating to synesthesia.

• Numerical cognition: The neural bases of human abilities to process numbers. In particular, I have studied the human mental number-line, or the fact that everyone unconsciously associates numbers with space. Interestingly some synesthetes also associate numbers with space, but for them, this is a conscious association. My current research suggests that this linkage between numbers and space depends on the parietal lobe involved with numerical processing and spatial processing.

• Developmental cognitive neuroscience: I have begun working with Bruce McCandliss at Vanderbilt to explore the development of numerical cognition in children around the age of 6 years old, to identify the changes that occur as a result of the beginning of schooling in first grade.