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Auditory-tactile synesthesia

Alternative names sometimes used are sound-touch and audio-tactile


With this type of synesthesia, certain sounds trigger actual physical sensations in different parts of the body. They can be felt within the body or on the skin, or they can be related to proprioception (awareness of the nature, position and movement of the body).

Some manifestations that have been described are pressure on the skin; a sensation of tickling or puffs of air; pinpricks; pulsations; muscular contractions; pins and needles (paresthesia); strong sensations in hands or feet or under nails; localised pressure inside the body; oppression on the chest; electric zapping sensations travelling through specific body parts (but not unpleasant); waves of pleasure affecting all or part of the body; sensation of a geometric shape in your hands or against the skin or moving around the body; the physical sensation of touching a texture; the impression that the body is moving in a particular direction or rising or floating; sensation of metamorphosis of part of the body.


These tactile concurrents tend to be pleasant or neutral rather than troublesome or painful, although these latter reactions are sometimes possible. Auditory-tactile synesthesia appears to have an emotional component and it might be connected in some way to emotions triggered by the music, although studies are needed to determine whether this is so. In any case, the tactile sensations are highly specific, they are consistent and idiosyncratic (unique to each synesthete) and they are different from phenomena such as frisson or ASMR that affect many people, synesthetes and non-synesthetes alike, and which are not considered a type of synesthesia (see below for more information on these two phenomena and others). 


It is believed to be a relatively uncommon type of synesthesia (according to Sean Day's study of prevalence, only 5% of synesthetes have this type) although the percentage might actually be higher as it is a type on which there has been little research compared with others. Practically all the specific studies conducted on auditory-tactile synesthesia have focused on the type that occasionally arises in cases of brain injury (adventitious synesthesia), rather than the natural type we talk about on this website.

Some characteristics of auditory-tactile synesthesia:

It is consistent. Basically, the same sound heard under the same circumstances tends to evoke the same synesthetic tactile reaction (although there is little research on this subject).  

The degree of focus and relaxation is important: the tactile response tends to be strong and well-defined when the synesthete is relaxed and concentrating on the sound or music, and weaker or non-existent if they are concentrating on something else. Also, the experiences can be milder or not occur at all if the person is feeling tense and nervous but tremendously strong in a case of very deep relaxation, similar to a state of advanced meditation.

The quality of the sound also has an impact: both visual and tactile synesthesia tend to respond more strongly with good sound quality, listened to through good headphones, while a weaker response is caused by music that is distant or less surrounding.

The tactile effect can be cumulative: with certain types of music it can sometimes only start after many seconds or a few minutes, increasing in intensity as the same sounds repeat.

It can sometimes be accompanied by a perception of colour, i.e. that the tactile feeling created by the sound is of a particular colour and/or a sensation of shape.

It often coexists with auditory-visual synesthesia, giving rise to tactile and visual sensations at the same time.

What kind of sounds evoke auditory-tactile synesthesia?

It can be triggered by both musical and non-musical sounds, and it varies from person to person. In many cases the sound of each musical instrument is felt in a different part of the body or has its own specific tactile sensation, which is always consistent, so the inducer in this case is timbre. Alternatively, it may be specific to each song or musical genre. Although apparently much less common, auditory-tactile synesthesia can also be prompted by the different musical pitches (frequencies), keys or chords. There are also people for whom voices are the main trigger. Electronic sounds (and electronic music) can create tactile concurrents in many cases, and an example that tends to have a strong effect is autotune used to synthesise voices. Depending on the particular synesthete, other factors that can have a bearing are the degree of harmonisation, the tempo (and speed changes), the volume (intensity), and there can perhaps be a relationship with the emotion caused by a particular sound or musical sequence. These last two examples should not be confused with feeling vibrations from the music in your body or with frisson, which are not synesthesia (for frisson, see below).


Types of synesthesia related to auditory-tactile 

Mirror speech synesthesia

Mirror speech is a type of synesthesia that has been very little studied and appears to be very uncommon (according to Sean Day’s study only 0.18% of synesthetes have this type), but it could be considered a manifestation of, or at least related to, auditory-tactile synesthesia. When someone with this type hears another person speak they get the feeling that their own mouth, throat and even stomach are moving as if they were producing the same sounds. This type also has a certain similarity with mirror touch synesthesia.
Auditory-motor synesthesia

Some people with auditory-tactile synesthesia also experience another uncommon phenomenon, auditory-motor synesthesia, which consists of involuntary body movements triggered by sound.

Go to the page on auditory-motor synesthesia




Sound-texture synesthesia

For people with this type, hearing different sounds produces a perception of textures. However, in practice the textures usually accompany another concurrent of their synesthesia – normally colour, shape, taste or touch sensations – rather than being evoked individually, so sound-texture might not actually not be a type of synesthesia per se. In any case it is different from auditory-tactile synesthesia as it does not involve real physical tactile sensations on the body. It can coexist with auditory-visual synesthesia for example, creating visualisations of textured colours, or shapes with both colour and texture, but in this case the textures are not felt physically on the hands or on other parts of the body, and it is these real physical touch sensations that are the hallmark of auditory-tactile synesthesia.

Go to the page on sound-texture synesthesia


Auditory-tactile and sound-texture: projection and association?

Auditory-tactile and sound-texture synesthesia have been compared to projective and associative synesthesia respectively, auditory-tactile being the equivalent to a projected visual synesthesia as it is actually felt physically and not just in the mind. This is a very valid interpretation, although the terms “projective” and “associative” are currently only used for visual synesthesias and not for those with concurrents in the other senses.


Cross-modal correspondences: something everyone can do

Up to a point, all of us are able to associate textures with sounds. These associations are called “cross-modal correspondences” (or "cross-modal associations”) because they involve two different sensory modes, but they are not considered synesthesia as they do not occur consciously. The differences are as follows:

A person with sound-texture synesthesia: whenever they hear a particular sound they perceive a texture. They see, feel or taste this texture, normally in conjunction with their other types of synesthesia, and simply consider it to be one of the inherent properties of the sound. This can happen with all sounds or just some, but the sound-texture pairings are consistent.

A non-synesthete: they don’t normally perceive impressions of texture from sounds in their day-to-day life and they never think about it. However, if asked they would say that certain sounds correspond to certain textures rather than others.



Similar phenomena that are NOT auditory-tactile synesthesia:

Frisson (goosebumps or shivers of pleasure on listening to music).  Frisson is quite common and is a feeling of “shivers down your spine” and in the back of your neck. It can also produce tears or laughter and a speeded up heartbeat. It is estimated that perhaps two-thirds of the general population are able to feel this reaction (Grewe et al., 2007). It isn’t synesthesia but a physiological response to the emotion caused by the beauty of the music, particularly when it surprises the listener. It doesn’t normally happen with non-musical sounds. It has been associated with people who are more open to experience.

This video about the astonishing performance of the singer Susan Boyle after facing the contempt of a disrespectful jury and a sniggering audience in her trial for the TV programme Britain’s Got Talent is an excellent example of something that can cause frisson in many people.

This website provides an interesting discussion of the phenomenon of frisson in response to music and has plenty of relevant comments and links: Music Psychology: Who gets musical chills and why  


"Grima" or saccular acoustic sensitivity. This is an unpleasant sensation experienced on hearing certain sounds such as nails on a blackboard, scraping of textures like polystyrene or the prongs of a fork scratching a ceramic plate. It can put your teeth on edge and create a unpleasant shock sensation in the body including goosebumps and shivers, but it isn’t a form of synesthesia. It appears that all people can in fact suffer from it to a greater or lesser extent.

You can read more about this phenomenon here.


ASMR ("Automatic sensory meridian response”). Some people experience a feeling of hypnotic pleasure and a relaxing tingling sensation in their head, shoulders and spine, sometimes spreading to other areas of the body, in response to specific auditory and visual stimuli such as the sounds of whispering or kissing, fingernails touching the microphone or watching scenes of personal care and activities carried out slowly and with concentration. The phenomenon began to enjoy popularity in the early 2000’s, attracting increasing numbers of followers who experienced it, and literally millions of YouTube videos are now dedicated to scenes intended to evoke it. The percentage of people who experience ASMR has been estimated at 20% of the general population or even higher (see the study by Poerio et al., 2022). It is clear that those who experience it are not necessarily synesthetes; an interesting and rigorous research study (Barrat, E. L. and Davis, N. J. 2015found that 5.9% of their sample of people who experienced ASMR also had synesthesia, higher than that of synesthetes in the general population (around 4%) but not by any means exclusive or even typical. ASMR has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia but is not considered a manifestation of it, one of the reasons being because it creates a broadly similar reaction in all those who experience it and is therefore not idiosyncratic.

Here's a well-informed and reader-friendly article on ASMR by science communicator Clare Jonas.

And here's an interesting article on a scientific study on ASMR.

A scientific study (Poerio et al. 2022) investigating the relationship between ASMR and synesthesia


How do I know if the sensations I get are ASMR or auditory-tactile synesthesia?

Take a look at this table and see which side of it your experience tends to fall on. These are just some general ideas, not 100% exclusive indicators, but they might help clarify things. You might also like to take into account that ASMR is much more common (current estimate around 20% of the population) than auditory-tactile synesthesia, which is rare (perhaps 0.2% of the population). And also that some people could have both.

MANIFESTATIONS MORE TYPICAL OF ASMR


1. You get a pleasant tingling sensation, but not other types of physical sensation





2. It’s typically – or even exclusively – felt in your head and scalp, gradually spreading to the back of your neck and down your spine

3. You always get it in the same part of your body







4. The sensation is static or spreads slowly along the same route on your body



5. You continue to feel the sensation of pleasant tingling, relaxation and/or wellbeing for some time after you have stopped seeing/perceiving the scene that evokes it

6. You get a tactile sensation. It has no associated colour or shape

7. You get an accompanying feeling of relaxation and wellbeing


8. You are not necessarily a synesthete: you don’t experience any types of synesthesia, only this

9. The sensation is evoked by the typical ASMR triggers: whispering, soft touch, people concentrating on activities, personal attention, crisp sounds, slow hand movements, etc. (there’s a good list of common triggers here) https://therapytips.org/personality-tests/asmr-trigger-checklist

10. The sensation is only felt when you know (or believe) that the sound is being made by a person1 (for example, mouth noises evoke it but a similar sound made by bubbling mud doesn’t; watching someone playing a musical instrument could trigger it but listening to the sound of the instrument without seeing the person wouldn’t)2

11. It only happens with sounds that relax you and make you feel good




MANIFESTATIONS MORE TYPICAL OF AUDITORY-TACTILE SYNESTHESIA 

1. Tingling can be one of the types of sensation you get with auditory-tactile synesthesia, but there are also many others, e.g. pressure/oppression, pinpricks, pulsations, tickling or puffs of air, contractions, feelings of texture, impressions of body movement or body part metamorphosis

2. You get it in other parts of your body



3. Synesthesia involves having additional specific perceptions in response to elements forming part of series of abstract concepts, so the feelings are felt in different parts of your body according to an aspect of the sound/music you’re listening to: different notes/tones, chords, timbres, modes, parts of the song, keys, songs, musical genres, artists, different voices.

4. The sensation can manifest in other, different, ways:
it can jump from one part of your body to another, move rapidly up and down, start and end suddenly or move along routes very different to a gradual shifting

5. You stop feeling the sensation as soon as the sound that was evoking it stops



6. The tactile sensation can also have an inherent colour or geometric shape

7. You don’t necessarily get an accompanying feeling of relaxation and wellbeing


8. You are a synesthete: you have other types of synesthesia

9. The sensation is evoked by sounds or music, but not normally the typical sounds that trigger ASMR such as whispers or nail tapping. It isn’t prompted by scenes where people are concentrating on activities, personal care, etc.


10. The sounds themselves evoke the sensation, regardless of whether or not they are made by a person






11. It can also happen with other sounds: sounds that excite you or make you feel strong emotions, sounds you find unpleasant or confusing, or totally neutral sounds that don’t cause any particular emotion or wellbeing


1 ASMR is socially mediated, auditory-tactile synesthesia isn’t.

2 It’s interesting to note that some people could have both ASMR and misophonia, which would have the effect of cancelling out the pleasant sensation in the case of human sounds like mouth noises, etc. This person would have ASMR responses, but not with those particular triggers, which would cause them intense discomfort, anger and disgust.




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This page last updated: 27 February 2024

23 comments:

  1. I appreciate you giving such a comprehensive description of the way I experience this world. I feel sound exactly as described here and I’m so happy to find a resource to validate my condition.

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  2. I have a patient who reports that certain sounds (usually people's voices) make her "brain shake" she has normal UCL. Could this be the cause?

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    1. Hi! It’s difficult to say without a more detailed description, and I obviously can’t give any medical advice. From what you say I shouldn’t think so, but then I don’t know anything about what kind of conditions she has. There are many other auditory-related issues involving sensitivity to sound: hyperacusis, misophonia, sensory processing disorder, and plenty of others, which don’t necessarily have anything to do with synesthesia at all. I’d say that firstly if she’s experiencing something one-off or very specific and unpleasant it’s very unlikely to be syn, and secondly that synesthetes wouldn’t normally have just auditory-tactile, it would tend to be part of an array of different types, so you would have to determine whether she was a developmental synesthete “in general”: does she have grapheme-colour, colours for concepts e.g. time units, does she associate sounds and/or music with shape and colour? Those are some of the more common types and you would probably find one or more of those in all synesthetes to start with. If she is a synesthete, then you would have to find out more exactly about all the perceptions she feels with the different kind of sounds and see if it ties in with auditory-tactile (which incidentally is one of the least studied types and really we’re just finding out about how exactly it manifests). There is of course the rare but possible occurrence of auditory-tactile synesthesia from brain damage, if she’s suffered some kind of event of that nature: adventitious synesthesia isn’t my speciality but there have been some case studies I could probably find links to if you wanted to see them.

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  3. Is it possible for this to be reversed? Im not sure that I always get tactile responses to sound, but I have very consistent (for many years) mental audio responses to touch. Running my fingers over my skin or getting a Papercut or the feeling when I touch a bruise (on my own body) all have distinct associations with sounds and pitch.

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    1. Yes! Tactile-auditory synesthesia exists: https://www.thesynesthesiatree.com/2021/03/tactile-auditory-synesthesia.html

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  4. Does anyone ever feel like the atmosphere is thick or thin? Like the air is almost like an oil consistency or hair gel? Different environments have different consistencies for me. In areas that I experience extreme anxiety, or uncertainty, everyone appears flat and lifeless even-if they’re moving.
    Like cut outs of real people. But in a regular vibrant mind state such as when I am taking a walk in the forest or hike, or calm and engaged with friends or family, the air is thick like almost being underwater. And I can feel it on my skin and the “weight” on my body. It is not unpleasant at all. It is not the atmosphere or dew or pressure, it’s not environmental, but instead affected by the environment.
    It is a very specific immersion feeling. I’ve read a lot about tactile audio synesthesia but I haven’t met anyone that has an environmental, tactile ones such as this.
    I do believe I also have mirror touch synesthesia because when I see anything get hurt or killed, it makes me feel like I have lost my breath and my vision gets tiny and foggy and it feels like I’m going to faint. If I see an animal suffering on the side of the road or having been hit by a car my chest caves in as if I have been impacted by the vehicle. Often times appendages will go numb and weak.
    This has happened since I was a child.
    Not sure if mirror touch synesthesia can be specifically to animals. But I am a park ranger and work as a veterinary assistant and maybe that is part of the association?
    Just throwing it out there cause I’m not even sure about what I’m experiencing half the time I do know what limits me to some extent, but for the most part, the environmental thick air feeling is very pleasant. It makes me feel protected and safe and wrapped up in some kind of invisible thick hug. Thank you all so much for sharing!

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    1. Hi! Thank you for commenting and sorry for the delay in replying. I must say I haven't heard anyone mention what you say about feeling atmospheres physically as thick or thin. I'm wondering if perhaps from what you say the trigger would be the kind or class of emotion you are feeling. So maybe you could take a look at emotion-tactile synesthesia and see if you recognise anything? I'm thinking that in my own case, a feeling of wellbeing (when it comes to me through a sense such as a taste or a tactile sensation, not just a feeling of wellbeing alone) presents itself as a kind of squidgy cushiony shape which I feel I am lying on or perceiving in front of me. But it is the feeling of wellbeing caused by the sensorial event that causes the shape perception. Maybe what you experience is something similar? I can identify with what you say about it being pleasant and like being wrapped up. Perhaps you could think if you have any more physical perceptions with other emotions.
      Mirror-touch would be if you actually saw the animal hit in the chest and felt it in your chest right at the moment it was struck, rather than feeling it when you are seeing the after-effects. That sounds to me like pain empathy, which is slightly different. But yes, all this can definitely be specific to animals, and it's interesting that you're a veterinary assistant and feel this kind of mirror involvement with them.

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  5. I just discovered this term, but most of my experiences with this phenomena have been unpleasant. Velcro slowly being pulled apart causes a very uncomfortable tickling sensation in my head. A video that I recently just watched had a fast ticking sound in it that I could physically feel inside the back of my neck a ticking sensation that was uncomfortable. The video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ111VcweOA at 0:09 seconds the sound starts, could this be what I am experiencing?

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    1. Velcro is terrible!

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    2. Thank you for commenting! I couldn't hear any ticking at all at 0:09, was it at 9:00 perhaps? I heard some ticking there and I wondered if it might give me something tactile too, although with the sound of the voice being much louder it seemed to me that it drowned out the ticking and prevented any audio-tactile I might have had... although in music a small sound like that can be tactile for me while a more dominant sound isn't. I'd say that your reactions could be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia, yes, if you have a variety of tactile reactions to different sounds and not just "grima" or rejection of certain sounds that is exclusively unpleasant, and limited to the series of sounds that often cause this like nails on a chalkboard, polystyrene or, as you mention, velcro.

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  6. I feel sound everywhere, all the time. It's incredibly overwhelming. Birds chirping feels like a little pulse in my face, squirrels barking feels like wind on my face. Cars driving by blocks away feel like a crumpled bit of tissue paper being pulled through the side of my head. Voices tickle my forehead. Car doors shutting, footsteps upstairs, creaking in the floorboards, sounds like this all feel like thumps inside my chest. I didn't recognize that this wasn't what everyone felt until very, very recently. I've been having a hard time explaining or naming it, because nobody I've spoken to knows what I'm talking about... It would seem this could be auditory-tactile synesthesia?

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    1. Yes, I would say you could call all of that auditory-tactile synesthesia. I hope you manage to focus on the pleasant sensations :)

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    2. Hah! I do my best :)

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  7. Where or who would you go to in order to get help with this condition or a diagnosis?

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    1. Ah, and just wanted to add that whereas getting a diagnosis is beneficial for getting help with conditions that affect your life negatively, but that isn't normally the case for synesthesia and it's just a trait rather than a condition, so a diagnosis from the medical profession isn't necessary and the vast majority of synesthetes don't have one, they just know that they fit in with the descriptions of it.

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  8. Probably a neurologist, or your doctor could refer you to a related specialist if you describe what you experience. It depends on what you're actually experiencing, of course. I'd note that most general medical professionals, as is logical, don't have an in-depth knowledge of synesthesia. I also think auditory-tactile is one of the more "difficult" types as there are practically no studies on it (on the natural, developmental type that a synesthete might have always had all their life, at least), and there are so many conditions that involve sound and various reactions that we can feel physically, and most probably shouldn't be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia at all, especially if they're unpleasant. But I hope you get your diagnosis and if you're having sound-related unpleasant physical sensations I hope you get help in reducing them.

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  9. I’m happy to see that this is a known phenomenon, but I wanna back up the person above- it’s a negative sensation quite a lot of the time. I don’t know if they can affect each other, but I have normal tactile processing disorder, so maybe it’s just that I’m sensitive/averse to the texture sensations that the sounds create?

    This did help me clarify that I have this synesthesia, though, as I’ve been struggling to convince myself I’m not ‘faking it’. it’s consistent, and it’s more visceral than the sound-texture association you mentioned. It’s still weird that it’s the only synesthesia I have.

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  10. (Same anon) To clarify, I don’t THINK i have auditory processing disorder, though I thought I did previously. Once I learned that auditory-tactile synesthesia was a thing, I observed that my negative reactions to sound seemed far more related to their texture, rather than the sound itself. Sound sensitivity by proxy, sorta.

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  11. I think I have synesthesia but I’m not sure. When I listen to music it feels more like a ghost of a feeling rather that if it actually happened. For example the song halo by Beyoncé feels like a drumming/pins and needles on the bottom of my feet and back of my neck but it’s not as strong as if this was actually happening. Or engine revving like feels like a light shock going up my spine but it’s not super strong and could potentially go unnoticed if I was super distracted. Does this sound like synesthesia or something else?

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    1. Hi and sorry I haven't been able to reply to comments during this month of August!

      If your tactile perceptions are fairly varied but consistent for the same songs/sounds/types of music etc., yes, I think you could say that what you have is auditory-tactile synesthesia. Although as we were saying in other comments above, it's not a type that's been studied much and so there aren't really any reliable descriptions of everything that really is and everything that really isn't audio-tactile syn, so in general it can be difficult to say. But I totally agree - from my own experience and other people's - that it often isn't felt at all if you're distracted, concentrating on something else or just hearing background noise rather than listening undistractedly to music with headphones for example. I get the "feet" thing too... and it's really strong when I'm relaxed and totally concentrated on what I'm listening to, while I think it'd probably be inexistent if the music was there but I was totally concentrating on something else.

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  12. I think I might have this, There are certain sounds that most always provoke certain feelings in my body. Like the sound of my friend crunching on a crispy potato I felt in my right knee. The sound of metal grating on other metal (specific to something at work) always produces an uncomfortable prickly feeling in my body. Certain sounds can also create pleasant feeling in my head or other parts of my body. Like if I hear scratching I can feel it in my teeth. I've been this way since I was young. I'm very sensitive to sound though as well and get auditory overloads so I'm unsure if it's that or synesthesia. What is your opinion?

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    1. Hi! My opinion is that this could probably be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia, yes. If the same sounds affect you with the same tactile sensations in the same part of your body each time, and it's something like as if the different sounds were in classes or categories and you're perceiving the result of that through a different sense, tactile in this case, then that would broadly fit the definition. If you are already a synesthete, i.e. have other types of synesthesia, then it would be more likely that it should be considered auditory-tactile synesthesia than another phenomenon. Although they may of course be sensory processing issues that are not really related, especially if you're not otherwise a synesthete. As we were commenting in some comments earlier in this thread, "it's not a type that's been studied much and so there aren't really any reliable descriptions of everything that really is and everything that really isn't audio-tactile syn, so in general it can be difficult to say," which is why perhaps it's just impossible to give definite answers at the present time. The fact that many of your reactions are pleasant or neutral rather than unpleasant would bring it closer to synesthesia, in my opinion.

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  13. I don't know whether I have synaesthesia or not but whenever I hear music, I kind of feel things in my head like some beats pulsate while others swing like a pendulum and instruments are a 'scale' or a 'ramp' with higher pitches higher up. I have to concentrate a bit and wear headphones to get the full feeling.

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