Auditory-tactile synesthesia

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

With this type of synesthesia, certain sounds or aspects of music consistently 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; tingling; strong sensations in specific parts of the body; localised pressure inside the body; oppression on the chest; electric zapping sensations travelling through specific parts of the body (but not unpleasant); 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, falling or floating; a sensation of metamorphosis of part of the body (including the body becoming the shape of the sound), and other physical sensations.

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 respond to series, sequences or categories of sounds/music and not individual or unrelated sounds, they are consistent and idiosyncratic (unique to each synesthete) and 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 different as there has been little research on it and little work done towards determining a rigorous definition for this type of synesthesia. 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 possible 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 musical or sound categories 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 would always be 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. 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 merely feeling vibrations from the music in your body or with the emotion-related frisson that most people experience, which are not synesthesia (for a description of frisson, see below).

Types of synesthesia related to auditory-tactile 

Mirror speech synesthesia

Mirror speech is a phenomenon that has been very little studied and appears to be very uncommon (according to Sean Day’s study it is only reported by 0.18% of synesthetes), 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.

Go to the page on mirror speech 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. These movements or actions correspond to certain categories of sounds or music, not merely its rhythm, and are different from dancing or keeping a beat.

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 automatically and 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 ("Autonomous 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. 2015) found 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.

The Deezer global ASMR survey with music 

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 (i.e. it doesn't move) 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)  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 j 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, shape or colour, 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 pleasurable 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.

  A  u  d  i  t  o  r  y  -  t  a  c  t  i  l  e    S  y  n  e  s  t  h  e  s  i  a

More cases / readers' comments: read all the comments on this article here

(See the comments received in 2026 below, or follow the above link for access to all the reader comments describing their own experiences: it makes interesting reading)

This page last updated: 7 September 2024