Where are all the synaesthetic chefs?

Flavour

Ophelia Deroy¹  Jozef Youssef²  Charles Spence³ 

[1] Centre for the Study of the Senses and Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK;Kitchen Theory, London, UK;Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK

关键词: Creativity;    Gastronomy;    Art;    Flavour;    Multisensory;    Synaesthesia;   

Others  :  1228877
DOI  :  10.1186/s13411-015-0039-8

 received in 2015-08-27, accepted in 2015-10-02,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

With high-end chefs being increasingly considered as artists, gastronomy offers a new domain for our understanding of creativity. As several claims have been made about the link between synaesthesia and creativity, one would expect to find at least as many synaesthetes among chefs as among painters, composers, or writers—and perhaps even more—given the highly multisensory nature of the culinary arts. Here, we examine why synaesthesia is still under-reported among creative chefs. Does the absence of such reports merely reflect the fact that synaesthesia is so overly common when it comes to the chemical senses to even merit attention, or on the contrary, that synaesthesia involving the chemical senses (i.e. smell, taste, or their composite, flavour) as either the “inducer” or “concurrent” is really rare? An alternative explanation, which we advance here, is that synaesthetic creativity, when expressed in edible form, may simply not be very tasty: As such, the very fact that the fruits of the artist’s work are consumed may fundamentally distinguish the culinary arts from other inedible forms of art.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Spence et al.

【 参考文献 】

• [1]Dornenburg A, Page K. Culinary artistry. John Wiley & Sons, New York; 1996.
• [2]Carey J. What good are the arts?. Faber & Faber, London; 2005.
• [3]Aduriz AL. Mugaritz: a natural science of cooking. Phaidon, New York; 2014.
• [4]Duffy PL. Blue cats and chartreuse kittens. Henry Holt and Co, New York; 2001.
• [5]Mulvenna CM: Synaesthesia, the arts and creativity: a neurological connection. In J Bogousslavsky, MG Hennerici (Eds.), Neurological disorders in famous artists—part 2 (Basel, Karger). Front Neurol Neurosci 2007, 22:206-22.
• [6]Rothen N, Meier B. Higher prevalence of synaesthesia in art students. Perception. 2010; 39:718-720.
• [7]Ward J, Thompson-Lake D, Ely R, Kaminski F. Synaesthesia, creativity and art: what is the link? Brit J Psychol. 2008; 99:127-141.
• [8]Cytowic RE. Synaesthesia: a union of the senses. Springer, New York; 1989.
• [9]Cytowic RE. The man who tasted shapes. GP Putnam’s Sons, USA; 1993.
• [10]Cytowic RE, Eagleman DM. Wednesday is indigo blue: discovering the brain of synesthesia. MIT Press, Cambridge; 2009.
• [11]Simner J, Hubbard EM. The Oxford handbook of synesthesia. Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2013.
• [12]Domino G. Synesthesia and creativity in fine arts students: an empirical look. Creativity Res J. 1989; 2:17-29.
• [13]Grossenbacher PG, Lovelace CT. Mechanisms of synesthesia: cognitive and physiological constraints. Trends Cogn Sci. 2001; 5:36-41.
• [14]Harrison J. Synaesthesia: the strangest thing. Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2001.
• [15]Massy-Beresford H: How we all could benefit from synaesthesia. The Guardian 2014, April 26th. Downloaded from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/apr/27/benefit-synaesthesia-brain-injury-mental-decline on 25/08/2015.
• [16]Rossant J: (2007). Homaro Cantu: interview. Downloaded from http://superchefblog.com/2012/02/07/homaro-cantu-interview/ on 24/08/2015.
• [17]Bertolli P. Cooking by hand. Clarkson Potter, New York; 2003.
• [18]Spence C, Deroy O. On the shapes of tastes and flavours. Petits Propos Culinaires. 2012; 97:75-108.
• [19]Carlsen A: Some people really can taste the rainbow. The Salt 2013, March 18th. Downloaded from http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/03/12/174132392/synesthetes-really-can-taste-the-rainbow on 24/08/2015.
• [20]Spence C, Piqueras-Fiszman B. The perfect meal: the multisensory science of food and dining. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford; 2014.
• [21]Haverkamp M. Synesthetic design: handbook for a multisensory approach. Birkhäuser, Basel; 2014.
• [22]Spinney L: Selling sensation: the new marketing territory. New Scientist 2013, 2934 (18th September). Downloaded from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929340-400-selling-sensation-the-new-marketing-territory/ on 25/08/2015.
• [23]Dailey A, Martindale C, Borkum J. Creativity, synesthesia and physiognomic perception. Creativity Res J. 1997; 10:1-8.
• [24]Ward J, Moore S, Thompson-Lake D, Salih S, Beck B. The aesthetic appeal of auditory-visual synaesthetic perceptions in people without synaesthesia. Perception. 2008; 13:1285-1297.
• [25]Deroy O, Spence C. Weakening the case for ‘weak synaesthesia’: why crossmodal correspondences are not synaesthetic. Psych Bull Rev. 2013; 20:643-664.
• [26]Simner J. Defining synaesthesia. Brit J Psychol. 2012; 103:1-15.
• [27]Rozin P. “Taste-smell confusions” and the duality of the olfactory sense. Percept Psychophys. 1982; 31:397-401.
• [28]Stevenson RJ, Boakes RA. Sweet and sour smells: learned synaesthesia between the senses of taste and smell. In: The handbook of multisensory processing. Calvert GA, Spence C, Stein BE, editors. MIT Press, Cambridge; 2004: p.69-83.
• [29]Stevenson RJ, Tomiczek C. Olfactory-induced synesthesias: a review and model. Psych Bull. 2007; 133:294-309.
• [30]Auvray M, Spence C. The multisensory perception of flavor. Conscious Cognit. 2008; 17:1016-1031.
• [31]Rouw R, Scholte HS. Increased structural connectivity in grapheme-color synesthesia. Nature Neurosci. 2007; 10:792-797.
• [32]Day S. Some demographic and socio-cultural aspects of synesthesia. In: Synesthesia: perspectives from cognitive neuroscience. Robertson LC, Sagiv N, editors. Oxford University Press, New York; 2005: p.11-33.
• [33]Day SA. The human sensoria and synaesthetic approach to cooking. Collapse. 2011; VII:378-409.
• [34]Kant I. Critique of judgment. New York: Haffner; 1892/1951.
• [35]Monroe D. Can food be art? The problem of consumption. In: Food and philosophy. Allhoff F, Monroe D, editors. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford; 2007: p.133-144.
• [36]Dinesen I. Babette’s feast. In: A literary feast. Golden L, editor. The Atlantic Monthly Press, New York; 1993: p.146-172.
• [37]Prince R: (2014). How we’re fed 434 hours of TV cookery a week—but the more they show, the less we cook… DailyMail Online, 26th September. Downloaded from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2771553/How-fed-434-hours-TV-cookery-week-cook.html on 13/05/2015.
• [38]Spence C, Okajima K, Cheok AD, Petit O, Michel C. Eating with our eyes: from visual hunger to digital satiation. Brain Cognit. 2015. doi:. 10. 1016/j.bandc.2015.08.006 webcite
• [39]Fleming A: quick bites: culinary synaesthesia, a feast for the senses. The Guardian 2015, February 20th. Downloaded from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2be19458-b7bd-11e4-981d-00144feab7de.html on 24/08/2015.
• [40]Miller B: Artist invites public to taste colour in ten-day event with dancers and wine at The Oval. Culture 24 2015 [Retrieved from. http://www. culture24.org.uk/art/art516019-artist-invites-public-to-taste-colour-in-ten-day-event%20with-dancers-and-wine-at-the-oval webcite
• [41]Rhodes E. A synaesthetic dining experience. The Psychologist. 2015; 28:090-099.
• [42]Brennan J. What’s the taste of colours? Food and synaesthesia. 2014, June 3rd. Downloaded from https://www.finedininglovers.com/stories/synaesthesia-food-event/ on 24/08/2015.
• [43]Stevenson RJ, Case TI. Olfactory imagery: a review. Psychon Bull Rev. 2005; 12:244-264.
• [44]Gilbert AN, Crouch M, Kemp SE. Olfactory and visual mental imagery. J Mental Imagery. 1998; 22:137-146.
• [45]Barron HC, Dolan RJ, Behrens TEJ. Online evaluation of novel choices by simultaneous representation of multiple memories. Nature Neurosci. 2013; 16:1492-1498.