Synaesthesia: The taste of words on the tip of the tongue

A word in your mouthSynaesthesia is a condition in which the senses cross over: on 'hearing' a sound, someone with synaesthesia might see a colour. In tests on individuals in whom synaesthetic tastes are elicited by words, they could 'taste' an upcoming word before they could say it. Tastes were triggered by thinking of the meaning of the word, rather than by hearing or seeing the word itself. It may be that conceptual thought is linked to perceptual experience in this way in all of us, but that the link is hyperactive in synaesthetes.