[Paleopsych] the senses

[G. Reinhart-Waller]

A regular gourmand feast.
What a marvelous diet!

Gerry Reinhart-Waller
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~waluk

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Hovland" <shovland at mindspring.com>
To: "'The new improved paleopsych list'" 
<paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:42 AM
Subject: RE: [Paleopsych] the senses


> Making music must be a totally ecstatic experience 
> for her.
>
> Steve Hovland
> www.stevehovland.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: K.E. [SMTP:guavaberry at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 7:12 PM
> To: paleo
> Subject: [Paleopsych] the senses
>
>  Synaesthete makes sweet music
>
>       News
>
>
>       Published online: 2 March 2005; | 
> doi:10.1038/news050228-9
>       Synaesthete makes sweet music
>       Ruth Francis
>       Professional musician distinguishes intervals 
> with her tongue.
>
>
> A recorder player has fascinated neuroscientists with 
> her ability to taste
> differences in the intervals between notes.
>
> The condition in which the brain links two or more of 
> the senses is known
> as synaesthesia, and some sense combinations are 
> relatively common. But
> this is the first time that the ability has been 
> found to help in
> performing a mental task, such as identifying a major 
> third.
>
> Elizabeth Sulston was at school when she first 
> noticed that she saw colours
> while hearing music. She realized that the same was 
> not true of her peers,
> although linkage of tone and colour is a known 
> synaesthetic combination.
>
> 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.
>
> Talking to news at 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."
>
> The taste of music
>
> Lutz Jancke, a neuroscientist at the University of 
> Zurich, Switzerland,
> works with musicians who report unusual qualities or 
> skills. Thanks to a
> student investigating synaesthesia he was introduced 
> to the
> recorder-playing Sulston.
>
> To test her unique ability, he and his colleagues 
> played tone intervals
> while delivering different tastes to her tongue. They 
> used either the same
> taste that Sulston associates with an interval, or a 
> clashing one.
>
> They found that she was able to identify the 
> intervals much more quickly
> when the taste matched the one that she says she 
> normally associates with
> it. That kind of pattern would be difficult to fake, 
> Jancke says. He
> reports the results in Nature1.
>
> "With incongruent taste she was sometimes slower than 
> other musicians; she
> is extraordinarily quick usually," he says. "The 
> synaesthesia is kind of
> boosting her performance. Her hit rate was perfect, 
> but the difference was
> in the reaction times."
>
> Full Text at Nature
> http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050228/full/050228-9.html
>
> Comment:
> The tongue has taste buds only for sweet, sour, 
> bitter and salt.  Most of
> her taste sensations fall just on these four, but the 
> girl also reports
> 'mown grass', 'disgust', 'pure water', 'cream' and 
> 'low fat cream'.  These
> could be combinations and relative intensities of the 
> taste bud sensations,
> or a combination of olfaction and taste, which would 
> be considerably more
> complex than taste alone.  It seems more likely that 
> taste alone is
> involved, and that interpretations of taste a 
> subconscious associations
> acting to enhance the raw taste sensation.
>
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