Mixing the senses
There was an article in the Economist this week that strongly resonated with me. It concerned the "condition" of synaethsesia , whereby the signal from one sense is interpreted by another. The most famous example is that of seeing sound in colours. The Economist article reported a study into how people link taste with sound. This is something that I have long experienced. Whilst I could never claim to be a good taster, whenever I try to describe a taste, it is usually in terms of a graphic equaliser or in the choir voices - soprano, alto, tenor, bass. The research described in the Economist article ascribes particular taste sensations to types of musical sound - bitterness with the higher strings (I can agree with that on so many levels!), vanilla was most associated with the woodwinds - and brass? Well, they got musk, which I don't fully understand. Photo from Thara M Flickr page, Creative commons license Not only that, it worked the other way around to