The Man Who Tasted Words: Inside the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses

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Kalau seandainya anda terpaksa harus merelakan salah satu indera, mana yang akan anda pilih? Indera penciuman? Mungkin menurut kita, kehilangan indera penciuman tidak banyak mempengaruhi hidup, tidak seperti kehilangan penglihatan atau pendengaran. The book raised some philosophical issues, that even days after finishing the last chapter, I am still reflecting on. Reality, whatever your experience, is constructed by the brain. My reality is most likely different than your reality and the truth is not necessarily what we perceive it to be. There’s discussion on the connection between Alzheimer’s and hearing loss, the importance of doctor/patient communication especially in communicating bad news, the difference of how patients born with certain conditions handle it versus those who encounter the ‘loss’ later in life. A sommelier loses her sense of taste, making it a bit of a challenge to do her job. You will learn a lot about how flavor informs our lives, and how it is actually constructed. Stretch out a hand; what can you feel with your fingertips, your palm, the soft underside of your wrist?

sensation is not simply a process of gathering information from the periphery and funnelling it to the brain, but that actually the brain can influence the data being captured. This is referred to as bottom-up and top-down processing, respectively. But this two-way flow of information is not limited to sensation, or even our senses; it is a feature of how every tenet of our nervous system works.-------------------------------------- …when we listen, what we hear is the result of the process of making sense of these pressure waves all around us, ascribing meaning to these tremblings of molecules. It is an early warning system, an awareness of what lies in wait immediately beyond our bodies or outside our field of vision. It is also an effective mode of communication. As the authors of the textbook Auditory Neuroscience state, ‘Every time you talk to someone, you are effectively engaging in something that can only be described as telepathic activity, as you are effectively “beaming your thoughts into the other person’s head,” using as your medium a form of “invisible vibrations”.’We tend to think of our senses as pure forms of data gathering. Physical sense encounters external stimuli and transfers that information directly to the brain, where the info is incorporated. Seems simple and direct, no? It might be were it actually the case. But it is most certainly NOT the case. We know for a fact that people believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of extant reality. January 6, 2021 and your crazy, Fox-addicted uncle offer prime examples of that. But it is also the case that believing is, literally, seeing, on a much more immediate, personal, sensate level, extending far beyond the willful ignorance of political (and reportorial) bubble-think. Leschziner also meets Paul, who can’t feel pain due to a genetic mutation that affects his sensory nerves. He has had a lifetime of injuries caused by a low aversion to danger because he can’t feel the painful consequences of risky behaviour. This has led to so many bone and joint problems that his movement is restricted. Leschziner explores the emotional toll of the condition on Paul and his parents, who lost a 13-month-old daughter with the same condition after her sepsis went undetected because she wasn’t showing signs of distress. But while fascinating, their experiences are more than simply curiosities. They teach us about our own perception of the world, forcing us to question the idea of ‘normal’ senses, and whether such a thing even exists. Does blue look the same to you and me? Does grass smell the same? Or sugar taste as sweet? Do we even have the same understanding of what ‘sweet’ is?Kalau namaku, rasanya seperti apa?" tanya Leschziner. "Seperti permen yang pahit, tapi setelah bertemu langsung dan mendengar suaramu, jadi ada lapisan manisnya" jawabnya. Lucu ya. Synesthesia does put in an appearance. For James, sounds have taste and texture. Valerie sees color associated with sound. Sometimes colors do seem too loud, even to those of us with the usual sense experiences. Is this a case of synesthesia in language? ‘My favourite Tube station was Tottenham Court Road, because there’s so many lovely words in there. “Tottenham” produced the taste and texture of a sausage; “Court” was like an egg – a fried egg but not a runny fried egg: a lovely crispy fried egg. And “Road” was toast. So there you’ve got a pre-made breakfast. But further along the Central Line was one of the worst ones, that used to taste like an aerosol can – you know, the aftertaste you get from hairspray. That was Bond Street.’It is the associations our sensate experiences have with our past, with our emotions with our thought processes, that give them value far beyond the immediate physical information they provide, whether one is a Proustian character recalling a large chunk of his past prompted by dipping a madeleine in a cup of tea, or one is a less literary sort, recalling a moment from early parenthood, prompted by the particular scents in the baby products section of a store. not only is there an overlap between olfaction and emotion, but also olfaction and emotional memory. Those regions of the brain involved in olfaction and emotional processing also have a strong role in memory.

Imagine tasting a full English breakfast whenever you heard the words “Tottenham Court Road”. Or the flavour of pineapple chunks at the tinkling of a piano. For James, who is a synaesthete and one of the extraordinary people described in Guy Leschziner’s new book, words, music and life itself are saturated with striking taste sensations. Leschziner, a professor of neurology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, has brought together a collection of exceptionally unusual and interesting stories in his second book, dedicated to the wonder of our senses.

Table of Contents

I received an ARE of The Man Who Tasted Words from St. Martin’s Press in return for a fair review. Thanks, folks. It smelled and tasted great. I guess no review of this book would be complete without referring to Synaesthesia. This is the state where the man in the title can taste words. However there are other forms of synaesthesia. The colours that some people find in music of music would be one and the chapter was again very interesting. Leschziner alludes to the fact that synaesthesia tends to run in families, but stops short of a satisfying deep dive into the research on how synaesthesia is linked to genetically determined structural changes in the brain.