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Dana Small, a neuroscientist at the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven, Conn., and the Yale School of Medicine, sniffs out an answer.
In a classic experiment, French researchers colored a white wine red with an odorless dye and asked a panel of wine experts to describe its taste. The connoisseurs described the wine using typical red wine descriptors rather than terms they would use to evaluate white wine, suggesting that the color played a significant role in the way they perceived the drink.
Although sight is not technically part of taste, it certainly influences perception. Interestingly, food and drink are identified predominantly by the senses of smell and sight, not taste. Food can be identified by sight alone—we don't have to eat a strawberry to know it is a strawberry. The same goes for smell, in many cases.
To our brains, "taste" is actually a fusion of a food's taste, smell and touch into a single sensation. This combination of qualities takes place because during chewing or sipping, all sensory information originates from a common location: whatever it is we're snacking on. Further, "flavor" is a more accurate term for what we commonly refer to as taste; therefore, smell not only influences but is an integral part of flavor.
Pure taste sensations include sweet, sour, salty, bitter, savory and, debatably, fat. Cells that recognize these flavors reside in taste buds located on the tongue and the roof of the mouth. When food and drink are placed in the mouth, taste cells are activated and we perceive a flavor. Concurrently, whatever we are eating or sipping invariably contacts and activates sensory cells, located side-by-side with the taste cells, that allow us to perceive qualities such as temperature, spiciness or creaminess. We perceive the act of touch as tasting because the contact "captures" the flavor sensation.
Smells also seem to come from the mouth, even though there are no cells there responsible for detecting scents. Instead the sensation of strawberry, for example, depends upon activation of smell cells located at the end of the nasal passage. The information gathered by these cells is relayed to the mouth via a process called olfactory referral.
To demonstrate this phenomenon for yourself, hold your nose and place a strawberry jelly bean in your mouth and chew. You should detect sweetness and a little sourness, along with the hard (and then soft) feeling of the candy. With your nose held, however, you won't notice the strawberry odor. When you let go, though, you allow the odor molecules to travel through the nasal cavity to the smell cells, and suddenly the jelly bean has a strawberry flavor.
Acquiring information related to scent through the back of the mouth is called retronasal olfaction—via the nostrils it is called orthonasal olfaction. Both methods influence flavor; aromas such as vanilla, for example, can cause something perceived as sweet to taste sweeter. Once an odor is experienced along with a flavor, the two become associated; thus, smell influences taste and taste influences smell.
FAQs
Although sight is not technically part of taste, it certainly influences perception. Interestingly, food and drink are identified predominantly by the senses of smell and sight, not taste. Food can be identified by sight alone—we don't have to eat a strawberry to know it is a strawberry.
How does the way food looks influence taste? ›
In fresh foods, such as fruits and vegetables, we rely on the color to determine their level of ripeness and/or freshness. If the color of a food product does not match our expectations, we may perceive its taste and flavor differently – a psychological effect some food companies use to their advantage.
How does smell affect the taste of food? ›
Without our sense of smell, our sense of taste is limited to only five distinct sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and the newly discovered “umami” or savory sensation. All other flavours that we experience come from smell. This is why, when our nose is blocked, as by a cold, most foods seem bland or tasteless.
What influences the taste of food? ›
Many factors alter taste perception, such as lesions of the oral mucosa, cigarette smoking, radiation, chemotherapy, renal disease, hepatitis, leprosy, hormones, nutrition, use of dentures, medications, and aging. Gum or ice chewing may temporarily help loss of taste.
Does the shape of food affect taste? ›
People associate tastes and visual shapes non-randomly. For example, round shapes are associated with sweet taste, while angular shapes are associated with sour and bitter tastes.
How does appearance affect taste? ›
“We unconsciously couple different colours to certain tastes. We associate green with freshness, yellow with acidity, black and blue with stronger flavours and red with sweetness. If, for example, you serve a drink in a red glass, you can actually add 10% less sugar than if you serve it in a blue or transparent glass.
Does color impact taste? ›
Some studies have shown that heightening the color of food or drink enhances the intensity of the taste. For instance, in a study from 1982, scientists gave participants drinks containing different amounts of red food dye and sugar. They found that people rated drinks sweeter when the drinks contained more dye.
How are taste and smell connected? ›
Both taste and smell are linked through the human body's chemosensation, its chemical sensing system. The human body's chemical sensing system includes the mouth and nose as well as the eyes and throat.
How much does smell impact taste? ›
Approximately 80–90% of what we perceive as "taste" is in fact due to our sense of smell (think about how dull food tastes when you have a head cold or a stuffy nose). At the beginning of this experiment you may not be able to tell the specific flavor of the candy beyond a general sensation of sweetness or sourness.
Does food taste better when you smell it? ›
The order in which your senses interact with food has a tremendous impact on how much you like it. That's the premise of a new study led by the University of South Florida (USF). The findings published in the “Journal of Consumer Psychology” show that food tastes better if you see it before smelling it.
Food presentation does, in fact, affect how food tastes. Scientists have concluded that our sight has a great influence on how we experience taste. If food is not presented in an attractive way, that will affect our overall perception of how the food tastes.
Does food taste better when it looks good? ›
Food tastes better when it looks good
Studies by Zellner, et al. (2011) show that diners believe food is tastier when plated neatly and in balance compared to unbalanced or untidy presentation, although the ingredients and quantities remained the same.
