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Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes

For centuries, if not millennia, people have associated the basic tastes (e.g., sweet, bitter, salty, and sour) with specific colours. While the range of tastes may have changed, and the reasons for wanting to connect the senses in this rather surprising way have undoubtedly differed, there would ne...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Spence, Charles, Levitan, Carmel A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8216361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34211685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20416695211018223
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author Spence, Charles
Levitan, Carmel A.
author_facet Spence, Charles
Levitan, Carmel A.
author_sort Spence, Charles
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description For centuries, if not millennia, people have associated the basic tastes (e.g., sweet, bitter, salty, and sour) with specific colours. While the range of tastes may have changed, and the reasons for wanting to connect the senses in this rather surprising way have undoubtedly differed, there would nevertheless appear to be a surprisingly high degree of consistency regarding this crossmodal mapping among non-synaesthetes that merits further consideration. Traditionally, colour–taste correspondences have often been considered together with odour–colour and flavour–colour correspondences. However, the explanation for these various correspondences with the chemical senses may turn out to be qualitatively different, given the presence of identifiable source objects in the case of food aromas/flavours, but not necessarily in the case of basic tastes. While the internalization of the crossmodal statistics of the environment provides one appealing account for the existence of colour–taste correspondences, emotional mediation may also be relevant. Ultimately, while explaining colour–taste correspondences is of both theoretical and historical interest, the growing awareness of the robustness of colour–taste correspondences would currently seem to be of particular relevance to those working in the fields of design and multisensory experiential marketing.
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spelling pubmed-82163612021-06-30 Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes Spence, Charles Levitan, Carmel A. Iperception Historical For centuries, if not millennia, people have associated the basic tastes (e.g., sweet, bitter, salty, and sour) with specific colours. While the range of tastes may have changed, and the reasons for wanting to connect the senses in this rather surprising way have undoubtedly differed, there would nevertheless appear to be a surprisingly high degree of consistency regarding this crossmodal mapping among non-synaesthetes that merits further consideration. Traditionally, colour–taste correspondences have often been considered together with odour–colour and flavour–colour correspondences. However, the explanation for these various correspondences with the chemical senses may turn out to be qualitatively different, given the presence of identifiable source objects in the case of food aromas/flavours, but not necessarily in the case of basic tastes. While the internalization of the crossmodal statistics of the environment provides one appealing account for the existence of colour–taste correspondences, emotional mediation may also be relevant. Ultimately, while explaining colour–taste correspondences is of both theoretical and historical interest, the growing awareness of the robustness of colour–taste correspondences would currently seem to be of particular relevance to those working in the fields of design and multisensory experiential marketing. SAGE Publications 2021-06-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8216361/ /pubmed/34211685 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20416695211018223 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Historical
Spence, Charles
Levitan, Carmel A.
Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title_full Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title_fullStr Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title_full_unstemmed Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title_short Explaining Crossmodal Correspondences Between Colours and Tastes
title_sort explaining crossmodal correspondences between colours and tastes
topic Historical
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8216361/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34211685
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/20416695211018223
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