Psychology Taste and Smell Lab

Written by P. A. Owens on September 8, 2018

Taste and Smell Lab

Problem: According to entnet.org, “The complicated process of smelling and tasting begins when molecules released by the substances around us stimulate special nerve cells in the nose, mouth, or throat. These cells transmit messages to the brain, where specific smells or tastes are identified. Smell inherently impacts how we taste things.” (N/A, 2018, paragraph 2). Keeping this information in our minds, how much does our sense of smell input into the tasting of foods?

Hypothesis: If the participants are bind folded and fed different foods, first while holding their noses, we can determine how much smell factors into tasting. The same for when they are allowed to smell the food before eating again, with noses unplugged.

Materials:

peanut butter

tortilla chip strips

cool whip

gummy bears

pita bread

a blindfold

Experiment: While blindfolded, each of my five participants, (Just as some extra information, they were all family members, so this experiment was great fun and got quite hilarious at times. There may or may not have been a few very, very sour looks from the strange taste of peanut butter and spitting out of gummy bears because of strange textures. Needless to say, it was a barrel of laughs for everyone involved.) held their nose and were given a small bite of each food listed. I gave them each of the five foods, telling them to distinguish each food without being able to see or smell the food. Unable to distinguish the foods, I then held each food up to their noses and let them smell the foods before eating them once more.

Data:

Identification Without Smelling
	Peanut Butter	Tortilla strips	Cool whip	Gummy bears	Pita bread
Participant 1:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 2:	Not recognized	Not recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 3:	Recognized	Recognized	recognized	Recognized	Not recognized

Participant 4:	Recognized	Recognized	Not Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized
Participant 5:	Recognized	Not recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized

How did you recognize the foods you tasted, without seeing or smelling them?

Participant 1: taste more than texture

Participant 2: Taste more than texture

Participant 3: taste and texture

Participant 4: texture more than taste

      Participant 5: texture more than taste

Identification With Smelling; no taste
	Peanut Butter	Tortilla strips	Cool Whip	Gummy bears	Pita bread
Participant 1:	Recognized	Recognized	recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 2:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 3:	Recognized	Not recognized	recognized	Recognized	Recognized

Participant 4:	Recognized	Not recognized	recognized	Recognized	Not recognized
Participant 5:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	recognized

Conclusion:  In some cases, the data in the hypothesis was supported in the experiment, but in others, it was not. Smell and texture were both very important for my participants to distinguish what the food was that they were given to taste or smell.

Communication: While texture was an important part of recognizing the foods, smell played an important role as well. For a few of the participants, it was harder to smell and recognize the substance than taste it, because taste and texture play such prominent roles. While taste and texture are important, for my participants, smelling the foods was actually more useful to identify them than tasting them was. As one can clearly see from the tables above, smell and texture were almost equal in the participants executing the correct guess of the foods they were tasting or smelling. All in all, this experiment showed that either texture and smell, or texture or smell, are both great way to find out what you are eating when blindfolded. And of course it showed how the brain can sense what the food is with or without texture and smell because of the familiarity of the foods, and common knowledge.

Citations:

2018 American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. Smell and Taste.

Retrieved on September 8, 2018 from:

https://www.entnet.org//content/smell-taste