Taste

(Gustation)
 Taste (Gustation)
Taste is a chemical sense.
Fungiform Papillae have pores that allow chemicals
to pass through to the 10-20 taste buds inside them.
Each taste bud has a pore that contains 50-100 taste
receptor cells whose hairs sense food molecules.
When activated, receptor cells in taste buds send
neural messages to the Thalamus which sends these
to right Temporal Lobe where it is recognized.
 Taste
Sweet
Sour
Salty
Bitter
Fungiform Papillae
Umami
Damaged taste
receptor cells are
replaced within a
few days.
 Paul Ekmans Infant Facial
Expression Experiment
Body expressions are cultural but facial
expressions are biological.
Newborn baby expressions when they tasted:
Water No expression
Sour Pucker
Bitter Rejection, try to take it out of their mouths.
Poisons are usually bitter so we have a natural
aversion to them.
Sugar Pleasant face. Put in amniotic fluid and
found babies suck more and suckle earlier.
Salt Doesnt develop right away, takes a few days.
 Linda Bartoschuk Taste Study
What kind of taster are you?
(Tongue Painting & TPC filter paper experiment)
Super Tasters are more
fungiform papillae, thinner, more
likely in women (detect poison)
Medium Tasters population
(most people here)
Non-Tasters population Taste
really sweet, rich, lots of fat as a
result they eat more and are
chubbier. (Survive Famines)
 Taster Facts
Women are more likely to be super tasters.
Taste receptors reproduce themselves so if you
burn your tongue they come back.
Alcoholics tend to be non-tasters.
Alcohol and tobacco kills taste buds permanently and
prematurely.
Sensitivity to taste changes with age.
The number of taste buds deteriorates as we get older.
Women develop more taste buds with menarche
and lose taste buds with menopause.
 Supertasters and Nontasters
Watch Tasters and Supertasters (14:00)
Segment #12 from Scientific American Frontiers: Video
Collection for Introductory Psychology (2nd edition).
 What is flavor?

Flavor is the result of sensory interaction

smell, texture, temperature, appearance & taste combine
to form flavor.
Close your eyes, hold your nose shut and try to
distinguish between different foods.
Taste stays the same but flavor changes with how a food
looks or what temperature it is served at.
Your sight and especially smell have an effect on
what you experience as flavor.
 Starburst/Skittle Experiment
Give someone a Starburst/Skittle and have them unwrap &
eat it with nose plugged & eyes closed.
They wont be able to tell you they flavor but they will
know the taste is sweet. When they unplug nose they can
tell what flavor.
Taste is bottom-up processing while flavor is top-down
processing because it involves the brain making a decision
based on sight & smell as well as taste.
Blindfold someone and give them orange juice one that
smells of vinegar but looks all right and another that looks
black (with food coloring) but tastes fine. Have them taste
it and then guess which one smelled or tasted bad. They
will pick the black one.