经济学人下载:通感 闻起来像贝多芬

Science and technology
科学技术

Synaesthesia
通感

Smells like Beethoven
闻起来像贝多芬

Using the word note to describe an odour may be more than just metaphor
用音符来描述气味可能并不仅仅是个隐喻

What do you hear?
你闻到了什么？

THAT some people make weird associations between the senses has been acknowledged for over a century.
有些人的感觉之间存在着奇怪的联系，这种情况一百多年来已为世人所知；

The condition has even been given a name: synaesthesia.
它甚至还有了个名字，叫做通感。

Odd as it may seem to those not so gifted,
也许常人会觉得奇怪，

synaesthetes insist that spoken sounds and the symbols which represent them give rise to specific colours or that individual musical notes have their own hues.
通感者却坚持说听到说话的声音时，他们脑子里出现的是特殊的颜色，还会说每个音符都有自己的色彩。

Yet there may be a little of this cross-modal association in everyone.
其实所有人可能都有点这种跨感官感知联合现象。

Most people agree that loud sounds are brighter than soft ones.
大多数人都同意响亮的声音比轻柔的声音亮些。

Likewise, low-pitched sounds are reminiscent of large objects and high-pitched ones evoke smallness.
同样，低音让人联想起宏大的物体，高音给人渺小的感觉。

Anne-Sylvie Crisinel and Charles Spence of Oxford University think something similar is true between sound and smell.
牛津大学的Anne-Sylvie Crisinel和Charles Spence认为，气味和声音之间也存在类似的联系。

Ms Crisinel and Dr Spence wanted to know whether an odour sniffed from a bottle could be linked to a specific pitch, and even a specific instrument.
Ms Crisinel 和Dr Spence想弄清楚瓶装的气味能否与特定的音调甚至乐器联系起来。

To find out, they asked 30 people to inhale 20 smells—ranging from apple to violet and wood smoke—which came from a teaching kit for wine-tasting.
为了找出答案，他们测试了30人，让每人吸入20种气味从苹果、紫罗兰的气味到木材烟尘这些气味来自品酒师教材。

After giving each sample a good sniff, volunteers had to click their way through 52 sounds of varying pitches, played by piano, woodwind, string or brass,
在认真体味每种气味后，志愿者要从52种音调不同、

and identify which best matched the smell.
音色各异的声音中点选出听起来感觉与气味最相配的。

The results of this study, to be published later this month in Chemical Senses, are intriguing.
研究结果十分有趣，本月将被发表在《Chemical Senses》杂志上。

The researchers’ first finding was that the volunteers did not think their request utterly ridiculous.
第一，研究者发现志愿者并不认为这项实验荒唐透顶。

It rather made sense, they told them afterwards.
试验结束后，志愿者们说实验还是有点意义的。

The second was that there was significant agreement between volunteers.
第二，志愿者的意见有重要的共同点。

Sweet and sour smells were rated as higher-pitched, smoky and woody ones as lower-pitched.
他们认为酸、甜的气味音调高，烟味和木头的气味音调低；

Blackberry and raspberry were very piano.
黑莓味和覆盆子味闻起来很像钢琴，

Vanilla had elements of both piano and woodwind.
香草味像钢琴和木管乐的混合体，

Musk was strongly brass.
麝香味则非常像铜管乐。

It is not immediately clear why people employ their musical senses in this way to help their assessment of a smell.
为什么人们会用乐感来帮助自己评价味道？答案并不能被立刻揭晓。

But gone are the days when science assumed each sense worked in isolation.
但是科学已不再认为人的各种感觉之间没有联系了。

People live, say Dr Spence and Ms Crisinel,
博士Dr Spence和Ms Crisinel说：

in a multisensory world and their brains tirelessly combine information from all sources to make sense, as it were, of what is going on around them.
人们生活在这个世界上，万事万物会引起各种感觉。大脑似乎在不停地综合来自各方面的信息，判断周围发生的事情。

Nor is this response restricted to humans.
这种反应也不仅仅发生在人类身上。

Studies of the brains of mice show that regions involved in olfaction also react to sound.
研究显示，老鼠大脑的嗅觉区同样会对声音做出反应。

Taste, too, seems linked to hearing.
味觉似乎也与听觉有关联。

Ms Crisinel and Dr Spence have previously established that sweet and sour tastes, like smells, are linked to high pitch, while bitter tastes bring lower pitches to mind.
此前Ms Crisinel和Dr Spence已经确定，酸味、甜味就像酸、甜的气味一样与高音相关；苦味则带来低音的感觉。

Now they have gone further.
如今他们走得更远。

In a study that will be published later this year they and their colleagues show how altering the pitch and instruments used in background music can alter the way food tastes.
在今年计划发表的一项试验中，二人与同事揭示了背景音乐中乐器和音调的改变会如何引起食物味道的改变。

In this experiment, each volunteer was given four pieces of toffee.
在这项试验中，每位志愿者得到了四块太妃糖。

They consumed the other two, however, to the accompaniment of a higher-pitched piano piece.
他们在忧郁低沉的铜管乐声中吃掉两块，又听着音调较高的钢琴曲吃掉另外两块。

Volunteers rated the toffee eaten during low-pitched music as more bitter than that consumed during the high-pitched rendition.
志愿者评价说，音乐的音调低时吃的糖较苦，音调高时吃的糖较甜。

The toffee was, of course, identical.
当然，所有的太妃糖都一样。

It was the sound that tasted different.
声音才是尝起来味道不一样的东西。