gustatory perception psych

• Gustatory Perception

  The process of becoming consciously aware of flavour
• Sensation in Taste

  1. Chewing breaks down food into tastants

  2. Tastants are received by gustatory receptors in taste buds

  3. Tastants are converted into neural impulses sent to primary gustatory cortex
• Tastants

  The sensory stimuli received in the form of chemical molecules that can be tasted
• Gustatory receptors

  The sensory receptors for taste, located in our taste buds
• Taste Buds

  Clusters of gustatory receptors
• Very little is known about perception in gustation
• We can perceive five basic flavours
• Gustatory perception is subjective and influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors
• Biological factors affecting taste

  • Younger people perceive taste differently to older people
  • Some people genetically inherit more or fewer taste buds
  • Illness can affect taste perception
  • Pregnancy hormones can change taste perception
• As we age

  Sensation of flavours becomes less sensitive
• There is a decline in number of taste buds

  Thereby, decreasing number of gustatory receptors, which peak in childhood
• Depending on a person's genes they may be..

  
  

  Supertaster, medium-taster, non-taster
• Perceptual set in taste

  Predisposition to taste something in a particular way or perceive only certain parts of the taste to attend to
• Appearance of food/drink

  Affects our expectation and enjoyment of flavour
• Colour of food/drink does not match expectations

  We may taste something wrong with it
• Shape of food/drink container

  Influences taste perception (round shapes associated with sweet, angular shapes with savoury/bitter)
• Familiarity with brand name/logo

  Influences judgement of flavour quality
• What basic flavours can we taste?

  Bitter, sour, umami, sweet, salty
• What factors is gustatory perception influenced by?

  Biological, psychological, social
• Why are we unable to perceive as much flavour when we were younger?

  Because we are receiving and transmitting less gustatory based information
• Our genes can determine..

  whether we are more or less sensitive to certain flavour
• Our perception of taste is influenced by a range of biological factors for example age and genetics.
• Age affects our ability to detect tastes because the number of receptors decreases over time.
• The ability to detect bitter tastes decreases with age due to the loss of taste buds on our tongue.
• There are five primary tastes that humans can distinguish: sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, sourness, and umami (a savory flavor).
• Our past experiences with food can set an expectation on what similar foods will taste like in the future. For example, past experiences with food poisoning can cause an dislike to that flavour in the future.
• Cultural influences play a significant role in shaping our preference for certain tastes as they influence our exposure to particular foods at an early stage of life.
• The context in which a food occurs in can affect taste for example, people report that foods that are coloured more brightly are stronger in flavour
• Our emotional state can also influence our taste preference. For example, foods that were consumed as a child may be associated with a sense of nostalgia and be perceived more favourably.
• The process of gustatory perception starts off with our saliva breaking down our foods into tastants when we chew. The tastants are received by our gustatory receptors, located within our taste buds. Then, the tastants are converted into a form that is sent to the brain as a neural impulse, which arrives in our primary gustatory cortex.
• Perceptual set refers to the predisposition to perceive certain features of a sensory stimuli in a way that is consistent with our expectations, ignoring other features that are deemed irrelevant. An example is an individual may have had past experiences with green lollies to often be lime flavour, therefore they may expect other green lollies to be lime flavoured.
• Biopsychosocial model

  Biological, psychological, and social factors that influence gustatory perception
• Biological factor impacting taste

  • Age
  • Decline in number of taste buds
  • Reduced taste sensitivity
• Perceptual set

  • Psychological factor that influences gustatory perception
  • Past experiences with a food create expectations that affect how we perceive a flavour
• Negative past experience with a food

  May cause us to perceive the food as unpleasant even though we enjoyed the taste before
• Social factor influencing perception and enjoyment of flavour

  • Culture
  • Foods we have grown up with are likely to be tolerated and enjoyed more than foreign foods
• The biopsychosocial model refers to the biological, psychological, and social factors that influence gustatory perception. A biological factor that impacts our taste is age because as we age our sensation of flavours become less sensitive and there is a decline in the number of taste buds we have. This impacts our taste sensitivity, causing us to unable to taste as much flavour.
• Our perceptual set is a psychological factor that influences our gustatory perception as our past experiences with a food may create expectations that affects how we perceive a flavour in a certain way. If someone had a negative experience with a food in the past, they may perceive the food as unpleasant even though they enjoyed the taste before their negative experience with it.
• Culture socially influences our perception and enjoyment of flavour as the foods we have grown up with are likely to be tolerated and enjoyed more than foreign foods. An example is an individual may have grown up in a culture that often eats spicy foods, which causes them to prefer the taste of spicy foods rather than sweet foods.