Chapter 10

• Bottom up processing

  Processing info by starting with the individual elements of a stimulus and building up to an interpretation
• Top down processing

  Using psychological factors such as pre existing knowledge and expectations to interpret and assign meaning to a stimulus
• Supertaster - have more taste buds + taste receptors on their tongue than average
• Judgement of flavours - impacted by our perceptual set (motivation, past experiences, emotional state)
• Miraculin - natural substance that turns sour into sweet tasting food or drink (taste modifier)
• Controlled process - conscious, voluntary actions or cognitive processes that require a high level of attention and monitoring
• Automatic processes - Actions that require little conscious awareness or mental effort, and do not interfere with performance of other activities
• Miraculin activates the sweet taste receptors on the tongue in acidic or sour conditions, which results in sour foods being perceived as sweet
• Synaesthesia: one-directional
• Synaesthesia: a group of neurological conditions where information taken in by one sense is involuntary experienced in a way normally associated with another sense
• Gustatory perception - sensory experience of food or drink that is put into the mouth and perceived as flavour
• 5 primary tastes - sour, sweet, bitter, salty and umami
• Bio factors

  Genes

  Genetic makeup influences the amount of and composition of gustatory receptors on taste buds
• Bio factors

  Age

  • Children born with natural preference for sweet and fatty foods
  • Children born with more taste buds than adults
• Bio factors Age

  • Children born with natural preference for sweet and fatty foods
  • Children born with more taste buds than adults
  • As we age - number of taste buds and their sensitivity decreases
• Psychological factors

  Memory - memory of past food experiences helps create an expectation of a food's taste

  • Gustatory cortex - brain area responsible for storing memories of new food tastes
  • Hippocampus - formulates and stores memories of the time and place of the taste experience
  • Amygdala - adds emotional element to the taste experience
• Psychological factors

  • food packaging - colour of packaging
  • appearance - if colour doesn't match our expectations we may perceive the foods taste differently
• Social factors

  Culture - people from different cultures eat different foods and have different preferences for particular tastes