Synaesthesia: Sensorial Stimuli

Tableware as Sensorial Stimuli by Jinhyun Jeon
The work by Jinhyun Jeon explores the question of whether or not textures, shapes and colours of cutlery can change the way in which we taste food. The knobly, bulbous and serrated textures on the cutlery was experimented with to try and provoke differences with our normal senses. 

"Focusing on ways of making eating a much richer experience, a series of dozens of different designs has been created, inspired by the phenomenon of synesthesia. This is a neurological condition where stimulus to one sense can affect one or more of the other senses.

An everyday event, 'taste' is created as a combination of more than five senses. Tasty formulas with the five elements – temperature, colour, texture, volume/weight and form – are applied to design proposal.

By exploring synesthesia, if we can stretch the borders of what tableware can do, the eating experience can be enriched in multi-­cross­‐wiring ways. The tableware we use for eating should not just be a tool for placing food in our mouth, but it should become an extension of our body, challenging our senses even in the moment when the food is still on its way to being consumed.

Each of these designs has been created to stimulate or train different senses, allowing more than just our tastebuds to be engaged in the act and enjoyment of eating as sensorial stimuli, therefore it would lead the way of mindful eating which guides to rediscovering a healthy and joyful relationship with food."

Colours: warm colours such as red and orange are supposed to increase appetite and most effectively when used sparingly. Orange stimuylatres appetitie because orange has been found to increaseoxygen supply to the brain.
Tactility: the different types of sensitive tactile sppons could not only stimulate our tongue, but also lips and the palette.
Temperature: sugar starts to taste sweeter at body temperature, salty tastes become stronger when the temperature drops, sour will always be sour and bitterness decreases as the temperature rises above the body temperature.
Volume and weight: decreasing the weight of the cutlery allows us to feel the wieght of the food, meaning we beome more aware of how much we are consuming. 
Form: Achanging the thickness of the handle can create more awareness when eating because even small amounts of food will appear to be heavy.