In the context of experiments, "designed" refers to the intentional planning and organization of the various components of an experiment to achieve specific research goals.
A control group is a group of participants in an experiment who do not receive any treatment or intervention. They serve as a baseline comparison for measuring the effects of synesthesia on taste perception.
The independent variable is the factor that researchers manipulate or change in an experiment to observe its effect on another variable. In this case, it could be manipulating different types of synesthesia or levels of synesthetic experience.
The dependent variable is the factor that researchers measure or observe in order to assess changes resulting from manipulating the independent variable. Here, it could be taste perception measured through participant ratings or physiological responses such as brain activity.