How does your name taste? The strange science of synaesthesia

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports on synaesthesia, a perceptual condition in which one sense can trigger another, through the experience of Constantina Makridakis, a 28-year-old jewellery designer from Greece. As a child, she believed everyone could taste voices and names, with some people’s names evoking flavours such as caramel-coated chocolate, pasta with prawns, syrup or jam. She later learned about the condition as a teenager after a family conversation led her to a documentary on synaesthesia.

The article says synaesthesia can take many forms. It notes that singer Billie Eilish has described seeing days of the week as colours and shapes, while composer Franz Liszt is believed to have linked musical notes to colours. Janina Neufeld, a researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, explains that many people have some internal sensory associations, but synaesthesia is more pronounced. She says estimates suggest roughly 2 to 4 percent of people may experience some form of it, though the real number could be higher because many do not recognise it.

Neufeld says researchers do not yet fully understand the brain mechanisms involved, but one theory is that less synaptic pruning in childhood may leave extra cross-sensory connections in place. The article adds that studies have found stronger activity and interaction in sensory brain regions among synaesthetes. For Makridakis, the condition can be distracting or tempting, but she also sees it as a reminder that people experience the world differently, even when responding to the same sound, name or colour.