Songs or musical genres evoke overall taste impressions.
Inducer
song
Concurrent
taste
Category
Auditory Gustatory
Song-genre-taste synesthesia involves entire songs or musical genres evoking overall taste impressions. A jazz standard might consistently taste like dark chocolate, while heavy metal could evoke a sharp, peppery flavor. Unlike single-note or chord-taste synesthesia, the taste here is influenced by the holistic qualities of the music — its tempo, instrumentation, emotional character, and genre conventions. A synesthete might describe classical music as tasting 'buttery' while punk rock tastes 'acidic.' This form is extremely rare and difficult to study because the inducer (a full song) is so complex.
Hanggi, J. et al. (2008). The hypothesis of neuronal interconnectivity as a correlate of synesthesia. Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis.
View publication →Cytowic, R.E. (2002). Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses. MIT Press.