The Effect of Age, Gender and Social Habits on Taste Absolute Threshold

A second idea regarding flavor, by Yeoman’s who stated the perception of flavor is a multisensory experience that combines gustation and olfaction. The odors sensed with tastes in the mouth is the result of taste characteristics to the odors when they are sniffed. Thus, when odors are experienced such as with sweet tastes they subsequently smell even sweeter and odors paired with sour tastes smell even sour. These experiences can effect if a person likes certain odors. In many cases odors paired with a sweet smell are well received by individuals compared to odors that are paired with a sour smell which are often not well received.

In previous studies, Frank and Byram’s article suggest that taste and smell interactions are dependent on taste and odor. In their experiments, they gave subjects strawberry

“Taste, like smell, is a doorman for the digestive tract, a chemical scan for the possible dangerous (bitter, sour) elements and desireable (salty, sweet) nutrients.” (46)

Before performing our Experimental Design Lab, I tasted all of the items to be used in our lab, and found that the Oreo taste was the most powerful. I also found that the Cheez-It taste was powerful, but I believed that it would be overshadowed by the sweetness of the Oreo. In doing this, a question (with the help of Mrs. Simonton) materialized: Will the Oreo overshadow the Cheez-It if they were crushed together? From this, we formed a hypothesis, which stated: Does the Oreo’s taste overpower the Cheez-It’s taste. We then took our question, and formulated it into an experiment.

(Laidlaw and Taylor, 1-9). Queer taste in the mouth can also manifest as one of the nonspecific

The use of 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) taste strips helps determines whether people have a sense of taste that is, ‘strongly bitter’, ‘bitter’, or ‘no taste.’ Through the studies of different reactions to taste, the hope is to get an overall assumption of taste perception for the population. Taste perception is based on the different amounts of fungiform papillae on the tongue and it will trigger differences in perceived taste intensities of other taste stimuli (Pelletier & Steele, 2014, Reedy, Haines, & Campbell, 2005, Bartoshuk,1993). The number of taste pores correlates with the strongest perception of sweet taste, but not as much correlation with fungiform papillae density relation to bitter substances (Wolf, Illini, Uy, Renner, & Mueller,

A flaw in the study is that it’s not completely reliable because the study relied on people’s memories on what they consumed.1

Taste buds are sensory organisms that are found on your tongue. They allow you to experience tastes that are sweet, salty, sour and bitter. The bumps that are located on your tongue is called papillae, which contain taste buds. Taste buds have extremely sensitive microscopic hairs called microvilli. Microvilli send messages to the brain about how something tastes, so you can tell if something is sweet, salty, sour, or bitter. The average person has around 10,000 taste buds, and they are replaced every two weeks or so. As a person ages, those taste smells do not get replaced so, an older person might have only 5,000 working taste buds(The Nemours Foundation, 2015). Smoking also can reduce the number of taste buds (Greene, 2011).

The PTC tasting trait is governed by two pairs of alleles eg. dominate T for tasting and a t for non tasting. If the mother or father has a genotype of TT and Tt they are tasters. If the mother or father has a genotype of tt they are non tasters. Studies have shown that there appears to be a hormonal intervention for the PTC tasting ability, but, women are thought to have more taste-sensitivity in regards to men. Scientists have hypothesised that PTC tasting may impart to the genetic level of dithiotyrosine in their saliva. Non tasters have a higher than average rate of gotire. This is a disease in the thyroid gland, that can be associated with lack of iodine. Predictions say that tasters could have more food aversions compared too non-tasters.

This study manipulates the preference for sucrose by administering lithium chloride (LiCl) to the rats after consumption of sucrose. The researchers sought to determine whether rats given access to free feeding would display more or less taste aversion than rats who were deprived of food after the LiCl injection.

267 participants (194 females, 73 males, mean age = 20.98 years) were recruited from a second year psychology class. Participants were tested in sixteen sessions in groups of up to twenty-four, supervised by an experimenter, and gave informed consent.

A large reason for experiencing different forms of taste such as: sour, salty, sweet, and bitter is because of our tongue. The tongue is an extremely movable set of muscles, which is supplied with blood and has many nerves. The tongue has many different function, but its main function is to enable us to eat. It allows to suck when trying to drinking something, softens up solid foods so that we can swallow it properly, and allows us to differentiate between many different tastes; which helps us determine if a type of food is good for us or not. Also, the tongue is covered in taste receptors, which are located throughout. This is where the chemical substances responsible for the sense of taste are mediated by groups of cells called taste buds which sample oral concentrations of a large number of small molecules and report a sensation of taste to centers in the brainstem. In most animals, including humans, taste buds are most prevalent on small pegs of epithelium on the tongue called papillae. Perception of taste also appears to be influenced by thermal stimulation of the tongue. In some

The literature review section cited a variety of studies done on food cues, salivation, and how odors are processed sensually by humans. For example, one referenced study found that sniffing a lemon increased salivation levels among participants, while other studies found that obese participants experienced higher levels of salivation than people of normal weight. That same concept even carried over to dieters versus non-dieters — i.e. dieters salivate more than non-dieters (Krishna, Morrin, & Sayin, 2013, p. 19-20).

Taste in incredibly complex and subjective. It can be both a personal and cultural opinion that holds influence over the world around us and how we as a society and an audience think, feel and view things we are presented with. Taste is an integral part of modern consumption and can change and evolve over time considerably along with our own personal experiences and opinion. Taste can inexplicably cause conflict due to its fickle nature, this can lead to taste becoming a problem. If something does not conform to society and culture’s taste then it will most likely be subject to censorship, in an effort to make the content conform and become tasteful. In this essay I shall be looking at three different things that have all been affected issues of taste and cultural opinion along with censorship. The use of censorship in tandem with taste is an interesting link that I shall hopefully explore and discuss.

We tested twenty students of all ages and gender. All the data was recorded in a table with the predictions under each different student and test. The materials that we used were three different flavored jelly beans, a blindfold, and water to cleanse palates. The key concepts of this experiment were vision, olfaction, and gustation. We want to see how well we can taste if we can’t smell.