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A Special Few Can "Taste" a Word Before They Can Say It
Science%20Image:%20taste
Image: © HOLGER SCHEIBE/ZEFA/CORBIS
TASTE OF THE UNKNOWN:  Words caught on the tip of the tongue elicit tastes in people with an unusual mixing of the senses called synesthesia.
Having a word stuck on the tip of the tongue is enough to activate an unusual condition in which some people perceive words as having different tastes, according to a new study. When people with the inherited condition, called synesthesia, looked at pictures of objects that come up infrequently in conversation, they perceived a taste before they could think of the word.

Some researchers believe synesthesia is an extreme version of what happens in everyone's mind. If so, the result suggests that all abstract thoughts are associated with specific perceptions, says neuropsychologist Julia Simner of the University of Edinburgh, co-author of the report. "The extent to which abstract thought is truly abstract--that's really what the question is."