Alliesthesia


Alliesthesia - other, and is a psychophysiological phenomenon that describes the dependent relationship between the internal state of an organism and the perceived pleasure or displeasure of stimuli. The internal state of an organism is in constant change, and any stimulus that can help to correct an error or need will be pleasantly perceived. For example, food will be more pleasant when hungry compared to when an organism is satiated. The sensation aroused therefore depends not only on the quality or on the intensity of the stimulus, but also on the internal state of the organism as sensed by internal receptors. The relationship between the perceptual system and physiology is subjective and studied by psychophysics.

Forms of alliesthesia

Each of these forms of alliesthesia exists in two opposite tendencies:
The phenomenon of alliesthesia was first described by the French physiologist Michel Cabanac. The first scientific publication from 1968 was succeeded by over 40 publications in international journals, for example: 1970 in Nature and 1971 in Science. The term alliesthesia was first mentioned in the annex of Physiological Role of Pleasure and was further elaborated in collaboration with the coauthor Stylianos Nicolaïdis. Originally, alliesthesia was demonstrated in experiments with human subjects, and later confirmed in rats.