Author Topic: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes  (Read 10105 times)

Darkmind

  • New Member
  • Posts: 50
Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« on: March 06, 2005, 12:22:24 AM »
Some one needs to tell her to lay off the LSD!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/03/taste.sounds.reut/index.html


LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Music can be a mouth-watering experience for one Swiss musician who "tastes" combinations of notes as distinct flavors, according to a report in the science journal Nature.

The 27-year-old woman known as E.S. is a synaesthete, someone who experiences sensation in more than one sense from the same stimulation, researchers said on Wednesday.

When E.S. hears tone intervals, the difference in pitch between two tones, she not only can see the musical notes as different colors but can taste the sounds.

"This is a special case of a musician who, when she hears tone intervals, she has a perception of a taste of a tone," said psychologist Michaela Esslen, of the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

"She doesn't imagine the taste, she really tastes it."

The case of E.S. reported in Nature is exceptional because seeing letters or digits in a certain color is more common in synaesthesia. It may also involve seeing a musical tone as a color.

But E.S. sees the colors and depending on the tone intervals a symphony could be bittersweet, salty, sour or creamy.

"Whenever she hears a specific musical interval, she automatically experiences a taste on her tongue that is consistently linked to that particular interval," the scientists said in the journal.

They tested E.S.'s ability by applying solutions tasting sour, bitter, salty or sweet to her tongue and asking her to identify the tone intervals, a difficult task that requires musical training.

When the applied tastes corresponded with the intervals she was able to identify them quicker than other musicians.

"We found that E.S.'s tone-interval identification was perfect," the researchers said.
"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." - Hemingway

SEMPER FI

garyk/nm

  • friend
  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 498
  • shovelbum
Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2005, 02:36:44 AM »
Wonder what gangsta rap tastes like? Oh, wait, you said music.

230RN

  • It's like swimming to shore in an ebb tide.
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 18,826
  • Pushing back. Help me out, here...
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #2 on: October 14, 2020, 06:34:04 AM »
Thinking about it, I guess there can be weird nerve interactions.  I've noticed things like getting an itch on my calf and when I scratch if, I feel it on my side under my arm.  Stuff like that just as an example.

Then there's pain "radiations" like in a heart attack and appendicitis.

This one is good in that it's so specific and repeatable.

Science likes "repeatable," otherwise it's just "anecdotal."

Doesn't somebody on this board have an avatar or personal text something like "I see sounds"?

Terry, 230RN

Fly320s

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 14,415
  • Formerly, Arthur, King of the Britons
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #3 on: October 14, 2020, 06:45:58 AM »
I wonder if they checked her brain for a tumor.  Seriously.  My mother-in-law had a brain tumor that caused he to smell and taste things that weren't there.
Islamic sex dolls.  Do they blow themselves up?

Perd Hapley

  • Superstar of the Internet
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 61,330
  • My prepositions are on/in
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #4 on: October 14, 2020, 07:01:07 AM »
After fifteen years, you'd think there would be some kind of update on this. But no.
"Doggies are angel babies!" -- my wife

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,564
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #5 on: October 14, 2020, 07:45:16 AM »
What smells purple?*







* - that was the punchline from an old sci-fi story I read as a kid. Seems relevant to "tasting" notes.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

230RN

  • It's like swimming to shore in an ebb tide.
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 18,826
  • Pushing back. Help me out, here...
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2020, 08:29:47 AM »
^ Don't know what sf story that was but it brought to mind when Marge was telling Homer he needed to eat more fruit.

So Homer replies, "What about jelly donuts?  They're purple inside.  Purple is a fruit."

:)

Irrelevant to OP, just came to mind.


AJ Dual

  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,162
  • Shoe Ballistics Inc.
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #7 on: October 14, 2020, 09:48:10 AM »
After fifteen years, you'd think there would be some kind of update on this. But no.

Thread necro smells kind of dusty. Like a garage or basement.
I promise not to duck.

Pb

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 4,887
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #8 on: October 14, 2020, 10:05:37 AM »
Seeing numbers as colors is one of the most common forms of synesthesia.

Even some people who are completely colorblind can see colors when they see numbers.

I once knew a woman who saw auruas around people (mine was orange).

I suspect that is a form of synthasia also.

Anyone know of someone with synthasia?

freakazoid

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 6,243
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #9 on: October 14, 2020, 11:09:39 AM »
Seeing numbers as colors is one of the most common forms of synesthesia.

Even some people who are completely colorblind can see colors when they see numbers.

I once knew a woman who saw auruas around people (mine was orange).

I suspect that is a form of synthasia also.

Anyone know of someone with synthasia?

Like when they see the number 1 written in black ink on a piece of paper it will actually look blue? ???
"so I ended up getting the above because I didn't want to make a whole production of sticking something between my knees and cranking. To me, the cranking on mine is pretty effortless, at least on the coarse setting. Maybe if someone has arthritis or something, it would be more difficult for them." - Ben

"I see a rager at least once a week." - brimic

K Frame

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 44,009
  • I Am Inimical
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #10 on: October 14, 2020, 11:32:58 AM »
Sheldon Cooper: It wasn't difficult. You know how when you see prime numbers they appear red but when they're twin primes they're pink and smell like gasoline?

Raj Koothrappali: No.

Sheldon Cooper: Huh, I guess I'm a special boy. You know, sometimes when a boy is special he gets a Fudgsicle. Which, by the way, tastes like the speed of light.
Carbon Monoxide, sucking the life out of idiots, 'tards, and fools since man tamed fire.

Pb

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 4,887
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #11 on: October 14, 2020, 02:33:06 PM »
Like when they see the number 1 written in black ink on a piece of paper it will actually look blue? ???

Yes.  Exactly like that.

Doggy Daddy

  • Poobah
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 5,330
  • From the saner side of Las Vegas
Re: Report: Woman 'tastes' musical notes
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2020, 01:15:05 AM »
What smells purple?

Disregarding any tone interval effects between the two, you do know the main difference between pink and purple, right?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
The grip.
Would you exchange
a walk-on part in a war
for a lead role in a cage?
-P.F.