The Auswine Forum

It has been reported in the science journal Nature that a Swiss musician can taste music as distinct flavors. The individual, E.S., has synaesthesia in which there is usually a concurrent perception of a musical note with a color. However E.S. experiences different tastes upon hearing different tones. A major third evokes sweet while a minor third is salty! If she hears a tritone she experiences disgust which is not a taste sensation, although it is a reaction I've had to some wines! I wonder if I was listening to music at the time? A link to the Reuters press article is here.

Mike

Hi Mike

What agreat way to taste and stay slim.

Can you tell me what the note is for Fois Gras

what about caviar? Mouton Rothchild?

Cheers
Glen

Hi Glen:

Not sure if they tested her over that range of flavors.

The interesting thing is that this woman probably has to eat and drink in silence otherwise an inappropriate tone interval (the difference in pitch between two tones) could change the taste of whatever she is consuming!

If I cite the relevant publication there should be no problem with copyright in reproducing the table from the report that gives the tones she was tested on and the taste she experiences. What is really interesting is that she experiencs mown grass, cream and low-fat cream, and even pure water. These are pretty specific flavors that, at least for me, would not involve the tongue, but the nose. There are cases where smell and more commonly color are associated with tone. (The first paragraph covers this: Synaesthesia is the involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal linkage — for example, hearing a tone (the inducing stimulus) evokes an additional sensation of seeing a colour(concurrent perception). Of the different types of synaesthesia, most have colour as the concurrent perception1, with concurrent perceptions of smell or taste being rare. Here we describe the case of a musician who experiences different tastes in response to hearing different musical tone intervals, and who makes use of her synaesthetic sensations in the complex task of tone-interval identification. G Beeli M Esslen & L Jäncke. Nature 434 (2005) p38.) The letter in Nature also states that she also reports the more common tone-to-colour synaesthesia, in which each particular tone is linked to a specific colour (for example, C and red; F sharp and violet).


Tone interval / Taste experienced
Minor second / Sour
Major second / Bitter
Minor third / Salty
Major third / Sweet
Fourth / (Mown grass)
Tritone / (Disgust)
Fifth / Pure water
Minor sixth / Cream
Major sixth / Low-fat cream
Minor seventh / Bitter
Major seventh / Sour
Octave / No taste

Taken from Table 1 of Synaesthesia: When coloured sounds taste sweet. G Beeli M Esslen & L Jäncke. Nature 434 (2005) p38.

Mike

Perhaps the most us mortals can hope for is the shiver of pleasure a fantasic piece of music or a great wine can give