Thursday, March 3, 2005
Synaesthete's taste for music
Synaesthesia, a popular topic on Boing Boing, is a surreal neurological condition in which two or more senses are linked together. The science journal Nature's news site reports on Elizabeth Sulston, a recorder player who can taste tone intervals in the music she plays:
As she began to learn music more formally, she found that when hearing particular tone intervals she experienced a characteristic taste on her tongue. For example, a minor third tasted salty to her, whereas a minor sixth tasted like cream. She started to use the tastes to help her recognize different chords.Link
Talking to news@nature.com, she says: "I always had the synaesthesia, but really became conscious of it at 16. Then I started to use it for the tone-interval identification. I could first check it by counting the space between the notes, and second by 'feeling' my tongue."
posted by David Pescovitz at 11:52:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments
