Talk:Taste

Question

Does anyone else taste sourness just by looking at something sour? Just me?

Archive

/Basic taste —Preceding unsigned comment added by SilkTork (talk • contribs) 11:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Gustation

maybe put the sense of tase on gustation and leave this page for the (complex and lengthy) subject of aesthetic taste -- Tarquin

I think most people are looking for the gustatory version, not the sociological/aesthetic one. Richard001 08:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that most people are looking for gustation, but the article shortchanges gustation as well. To describe my complaint loosely, this article describes the gustatory noun "taste", but the gustatory verb "taste" ("what does it taste like, apples or oranges?") generally refers to "flavor" (which does not have sense verb), so there should be a more prominent mention of this in the first paragraph, even as a disambiguation. "You might be looking for the article on what things taste like; this is described at flavor" 69.203.73.99 (talk) 21:20, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

X and VII

What are the (X) and (VII) things? Are these artifacts from something else? Or are they actually useful information? Quadell 19:55, May 3, 2004 (UTC)

The cranial nerves are numbered 1 through 12, but anatomists traditionally designate them by Roman numerals. The vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve to exit the brain (counting from the top down), and so is designated "X". Likewise, the facial nerve is "VII".Sayeth 19:32, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

Tarquin, I agree, there definitely needs to be a separate article for gustation.

--Johnkarp 07:40, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps this article should be simply about taste (the sense), with an italic header pointing to info about aesthetics. Merge in Basic taste for good measure. Jonathan Grynspan 28 June 2005 06:02 (UTC)

half of tongue blocked?

If half of the tongue is blocked from sending information to the brain, people will report that a doubling of psychological perception has occurred for sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

What does this mean? How is half of the tongue blocked from sending information to the brain?

--202.3.172.129 03:17, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Probably that the nerves on one side of the tounge are numbed with lidocaine or a similar drug. Sayeth 20:17, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think this is right. This is probably a reference to a paper by Linda Bartoshuk, but my memory is the intensity of the taste is not doubled. It is only enhanced somewhat. I removed this statement because it was inaccurate and not especially relevant.SJS1971 04:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Glancing at Yanagisawa et al (1998) quickly, it doesn't look like Linda reported the magnitude of the increase. Eyeballing the figure, it looks to be about 25% for quinine on the contralateral side. Anyway, I agree it is probably too much detail for a general interest page. Jeh25 00:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

DAB?

Any objection if I convert this into a proper dab, splitting out the relevant content into Gustatory system, Basic taste, and Taste (aesthetics)? --Arcadian 21:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Edits of 1/18/2007

I updated this article somewhat. There were some neuroanatomy errors, such as:

• that the facial nerve passed on information to the glossopharyngeal nerve
• that axons do not cross in the spinal cord (they don't go to the spinal cord at all - they are cranial nerves)
• that "taste hairs" transduce stimuli... I've not heard that term unless the writer was thinking of the microvilli on taste receptor cells

I also rephrased some sentences to avoid terminological confusions. For example, tastes aren't transduced; taste stimuli are transduced. The taste (the sweetness, for example) is experienced by the organism - it is a psychological, not physical, entity.

I will try and come back to add references and put references in the preferred format.

I'm curious: does anyone know about this statement that "color deficiency" is related to taste sensitivity? I hadn't heard that...

SJS1971 04:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

While I certainly don't know the literature as well as you do, I've never read that "color deficiency" is linked to taste function either. If I was to speculate, I'd guess that at some point the previous poster was taught that:

a) PROP/PTC tasting was like colorblindness (eg. normal variation based on genetics)

and

b) that PROP/PTC tasting was linked to food sensations,

only to later misremember the two as being somehow related.

Unless somebody can come up with a source, I think it should probably be removed.Jeh25 00:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Light & primaries

"Some researchers still argue against the notion of primaries at all and instead favor a continuum of percepts similar to color vision."

While it is true that visible light is indeed a spectrum, it can still correctly be divided into three primary colors due to the fact that there are three types of cone cells in the human eye, with each type being more sensitive to a different part of the spectrum. Color vision is a poor choice of illustration, because both the idea of a spectrum and the idea of primary colors coexist without conflict. CobraA1 20:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Changed from "similar to", to "in sharp contrast to", which is still clumsy but at least more accurate. Then again, the hypothesis is clumsy too: I don't think there's any part of the human nervous system which doesn't have primaries, whether they are the pigments, or tastes, or pain/heat/whatever of the nerves. There can't be a receptor that triggers when it's hit by a taste that's 25% salt, 25% sweet and 50% bitter: receptors don't work like that. They bind to one type of chemical, then send one type of signal. Like sight, our overall experience is the sum of all the nerves in that area. But with taste, we also get input from the nose, to confuse things.DewiMorgan 16:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I think without a decent reference the above sentence should just be scrapped. DrJunge 22:22, 01.06.2007 (UTC)

The number of receptor types has no bearing on the number of psychophysical categories in either taste or vision. It is quite easy to demonstrate that a few receptors which are broadly responsive can give rise to a great many psychophysical distinctions. SJS1971 (talk) 21:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC) Addendum: I went ahead and added some references on the idea that taste does not have a small set of "primaries". I also reverted the sentence back to "similar to" color vision since it is not valid to infer psychophysical categories from a count of anatomical receptors: these are two completely different levels of analysis. SJS1971 (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Two wikipedia pages on taste!

As well as this page, there is another page: http://en.wikipedia.org.ezproxy.auckland.ac.nz/wiki/Basic_taste These should be merged and IMHO classified under the conventional term "Taste" rather than "Basic Taste". Raichu2 04:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree - there is no need to split it off when we have such a small article here. I've added a merge template. I also suggest we redirect the acquired taste article here, at least until someone can flesh it out quite substantially. Richard001 05:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

We must be very careful not to mix up two concepts -- taste as the sense we have in our tongues and noses (in short, the psycho-physiological phenomenon) -- and taste as in preference (the psycho-social-cultural phenomenon). The article Basic Taste is about the former, but Acquired Taste is clearly about the latter. Mixing everything in the same bag could be confusing. SaintCahier 02:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point. The article is only about tastes in terms of food at the moment, but could certainly be expanded to include taste in arts for example. It's still important to discuss the relevant aspects of it (which are at present the entire contents of the article) though. I'll take down that merge proposal, but the other remains.

On that front, the only reasons I can see for keeping them separate is 1) Leaving this page as an overview of both gustation and sociological taste, or if this article was too large to reasonably house its daughter. The size of this article however is a concern for being too short on such an important subject rather than too large, and there doesn't seem to be any hint of widening the scope, which would probably just be a case of needless duplication. Richard001 07:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge: This is a no-brainer. Oicumayberight 18:55, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge: obviously. These are two articles on the same subject. Rracecarr 21:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Types of Tastes

The basic tastes are said to be SWEET, SOUR, SALTY AND BITTER.

What is HOT? How does a Red Chili taste? - HOT. Isnt it?

is it the -ve version of SWEET?

may be we should add it to the basic tastes.

-Vijay

The burn/irritation from chilies are not considered a taste classically because they are carried to the CNS by a different set of nerve fibers (eg the trigeminal nerve as compared to the chorda tympani nerve).Jeh25 01:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What about substances that "bring out" flavour?

I'm not much of a cook or a gourmet, but I've often heard that fat serves to "bring out" or enhance certain kinds of flavours. Shouldn't the article address this phenomenon? My guess, although I'm not sure, is that various flavour molecules are somehow dissolved in the fat, and therefore spread out over a wider surface area, so that the same amount of taste-inducing substance now induces a greater, stronger taste. I've also heard something similar about sugar (even seen an experiment on TV, involving Heston Blumenthal), but I have no idea of how that actually works. --Peter Knutsen (talk) 03:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Soapy taste

Obviously not the most popular to use in cooking, but I'm sure it must be some sort of taste? And is there an opposite of sour, ie a taste sensation when there is an excess of OH- ions? Alex9788 (talk) 11:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that wikipedia currently considers that a "soapy flavor" 69.203.73.99 (talk) 21:22, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Primaries

"Some researchers still argue against the notion of primaries at all and instead favor a continuum of percepts [7][8][9], similar to color vision."

This is a strange comparison to make, given that color vision definitely DOES involve primaries.

Ordinary Person (talk) 03:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Makes no sense

I removed the following paragraph because it makes no sense -

"One notable occurrence is the discrepancies between different salts when discussed from the perspective of the psychological sensation of taste. While NaCl, regular table salt, has one distinctive taste, another salt - the compound NaNH4, ammonium for example - is observed to have a completely different taste. This occurs despite the similarity in which this chemical is received in the taste receptors to NaCl. Reasons for this may include the mixing of sensations with sublimating particles of the salt entering the smell receptors through retronasal passageways and having a differing reaction there, which could produce a distinctively different flavor sensation. Other than that, the full bredth of reasoning on this subject is not yet accounted for as the understanding of taste and flavor are two very different and complicated fields."

1. There is no such salt as NaNH₄. It would have the ionic formula of Na⁺ NH₄⁺ which is impossible.

2. There are no salts which sublime under physiological conditions found in the human mouth.

3. The paragraph is rather poorly worded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GeeOh (talk • contribs) 03:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Makes no sense

I removed the following paragraph because it makes no sense -

"One notable occurrence is the discrepancies between different salts when discussed from the perspective of the psychological sensation of taste. While NaCl, regular table salt, has one distinctive taste, another salt - the compound NaNH4, ammonium for example - is observed to have a completely different taste. This occurs despite the similarity in which this chemical is received in the taste receptors to NaCl. Reasons for this may include the mixing of sensations with sublimating particles of the salt entering the smell receptors through retronasal passageways and having a differing reaction there, which could produce a distinctively different flavor sensation. Other than that, the full bredth of reasoning on this subject is not yet accounted for as the understanding of taste and flavor are two very different and complicated fields."

1. There is no such salt as NaNH₄. It would have the ionic formula of Na⁺ NH₄⁺ which is impossible.

2. There are no salts which sublime under physiological conditions found in the human mouth.

3. The paragraph is rather poorly worded.

GeeOh (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Bad tasing combinations of good tasting food

Gentlemen, please mention something about why e.g., putting salt in one's coffee, or sugar on one's spaghetti tastes bad. I bet it is the stomach or saliva glands saying "hey Holmes, what exact acid formulation do you expect me to produce to digest that?" Jidanni (talk) 00:54, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Human-centric?

This entire article seems to revolve around the human perception of taste. Is there absolutely nothing worth mentioning on Wikipedia about the sense of taste in non-human creatures, aside from the fact that mice seem to be able to taste fat? What about carnivores' ability (or lack thereof) to taste meat proteins, fats, and salts? What about birds' supposed inability to taste bitterness? What about fish? Reptiles? Invertebrates?? 75.211.78.183 (talk) 00:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Animal taste certainly is an important aspect of the topic and needs to be addressed. Did you have any sources in mind that could be incorporated into the article? --Gimme danger (talk) 01:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Mustard & Cinnamon

I was looking for some information on the tastes of ancient spices, mustard seed and cinnamon in particular, and was surprised not to find any mention of these wide spread spices here. Should we mention them somewhere in this article? And if yes, where? Mansize (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

at present you should look at the flavors of things like cinnamon and mustard 69.203.73.99 (talk) 21:23, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Aftertaste

In the section of the article labeled "aftertaste" appears this sentence: "Aftertaste is the persistence of a sensation of flavor after the stimulating substance has passed out of contact with the sensory end organs for taste.[dubious – discuss]" I'm not the one who marked it as dubious, but since discussion is requested I would say that some foods (such as wine, which was offered as an example) do indeed appear as a series of tastes but not only after the wine has been swallowed. Perhaps some chemical reactions take longer to complete than others, so that the successive sensations of blueberry, oak and chocolate (or whatever) are the result of chemical timing.RHBridges (talk) 17:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Are the multiple flavors you perceive while tasting a single substance properly called aftertastes? I'm not sure. Anyway, the sentence as stated seems to miss the fact that aftertastes are generally different from during-tastes. Looie496 (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Measurement of Taste

Is there any dimensions of the Taste. For example , a particular quality of Sugar may be sweeter than others, is there any way to Quantify the same ?? if yes then what are the units of measurement. Ap aravind (talk) 14:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Questions not related to improving an article should go to the Science Reference Desk. Looie496 (talk) 17:43, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Acidic bitterness

How can lidocaine have been identified as the source of a bitter taste, when it comes in a solution of HCl, which is acid? I thought acid is sour and bitterness is associated with alkaline? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:36, 16 July 2009 (UTC)