TEST
INVESTIGATING TASTE
This morning I’m going to describe for you a few of the kinds of experiments that have been used to
investigate
the sense of taste, which is now recognised as being a far more complex and important
area of neurological science than was previously believed by most people. The results of some of these
experiments can be quite fun and I shall suggest that you may want to choose one or two to try out in
groups before having a go at designing a new experimental procedure of your own and trying to pinpoint
the cause of your findings.
The first one concerns a marketing exercise by a soft drinks company.
The green colour of some cans
was altered by the addition of yellow,
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so they were a brighter green. Then test subjects were
asked what they thought about the flavour of the drink in the new-style cans, and
they stated that there
was more lime in the drink
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if it was in the ones with the new colour. This was because the brain
picks up cues from the way the product is presented,
as well as the product itself, which trigger taste
sensations. Before food was packaged, humans used colour
to gauge the ripeness of fruit, for example.
Next there’s the old problem with chewing gum. Everyone knows that after a few minutes’ chewing it loses
its minty flavour. However,
if you ask people to chew up to the point where it becomes tasteless, and
