Alliesthesia. Up-date of the Word and Concept |Biomedgrid

The current dictionary definition for alliesthesia is the hedonic modification of a sensation. The stimuli used to establish this initial definition was skin temperature and sweet tastes. However, accrued experimental evidence shows that changes in hedonicity place also in sensations, and then in other cognitive processes, mental experiences, and in all decision making. These accumulated data render obsolete the previous definition. We propose the following new one: Alliesthesia refers to a modified outcome of the hedonic dimension of any mental process, from sensation to mental performance, and decision making leading to physiological comfort and happiness. Positive alliesthesia is the rise in pleasure or joy or a decrease in displeasure or pain, while negative alliesthesia is the opposite.