Taste & Smell
15 Feb 2009 11:38 by majo
Sense
Senses are the physiological methods of perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology (or cognitive science), and philosophy of perception. The nervous system has a specific sensory system, or organ, dedicated to each sense.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense
The senses
Sight
Hearing
Taste / Gustation
Smell / Olfaction
Touch
Balance and acceleration
Temperature
Kinesthetic sense
Pain
Other internal senses
I`ve decided to work with taste and smell in my selective course called Design for all senses. Why? The main senses I`ve worked with before have been sight, hearing and touch. I want to explore something (entierly) new. Since we are bombarded with visual impressions daily, learning about the so called lower senses will broaden the horizon. It might even be smart to design with smell and taste as the society already is overwhelmed with sight and hearing impressions ex. from commercials.
The foundational texts of Western philosophy consistently rank these senses in a hierarchy of importance. Vision comes first because it is the sense considered to have the greatest significance for the devenlopment of knowledge. Though it is followed closely in the hierarcy by hearing.
The remaining three senses, smell, taste and touch are treated more briefly, and the order of their importance varies accoring to which aspect of the sense is stressed.
- Making Sense of Taste: Food & Philosophy by Carolyn Korsmeyer
Taste and smell are some of the senses which are rarely considered when designing products and services. I might go a little bit into haptics, as it also plays a part when eating. The tactility of food.
in modern (though not ancient) science, smell is linked with taste as one of the chemical senses, and indeed it is viritually impossible to conceive of a full-fledged taste sensation that does not have a olafactory components
- Making Sense of Taste
Interesting ascpects of my choosen senses is as Carolyn Korsmeyer writes:
Pleasure and pain are intimately sometimes inescapably, connected with the sensations delivered by taste, smell and touch, making these senses a cause for consern because of the seductive diversions they represent.
Taste requiers pherhaps the most intimate congress with the object of perception, which must enter the mouth, and which delivers sensations experienced in the mouth and throat on its way down and through the digestive track.
One of the most significant roles of food is social; eating is part of the rituals, cermonies, and practices that knit together communities
That taste (and smell) is intimate might be a weakness but also a strenght. As opposed to sight and hearing, smell and taste might not be that suited for distrubution over large areas for many people. Key here is pherhaps quality over quantity.
That last part might be something to keep in mind if new technology makes it possible to exchange taste or smell over the internet. We already have social networks on the net based on the two higher senses (sight and hearing). What about a net community based on food experiences?
 Taste
Taste or gustation is one of the two main "chemical" senses. There are at least four types of tastes[4] that "buds" (receptors) on the tongue detect, and hence there are anatomists who argue[citation needed] that these constitute five or more different senses, given that each receptor conveys information to a slightly different region of the brain[citation needed]. The inability to taste is called ageusia.
The four well-known receptors detect sweet, salt, sour, and bitter, although the receptors for sweet and bitter have not been conclusively identified. A fifth receptor, for a sensation called umami, was first theorised in 1908 and its existence confirmed in 2000[5]. The umami receptor detects the amino acid glutamate, a flavour commonly found in meat and in artificial flavourings such as monosodium glutamate.
The 5 basic tastes
 Sourness
Mostly appear in fruits. Lemon, lime, grape, orange, and sometimes the melon.
Sourness is the taste that detects acidity. The mechanism for detecting sour taste is similar to that which detects salt taste. Hydrogen ion channels detect the concentration of hydronium ions (H3O+ ions) that are formed from acids and water.
 Sweetness
Sugar cane, sugar beet, some fruits, honey, sorghum, sugar maple
Sweetness, usually regarded as a pleasurable sensation, is produced by the presence of sugars, some proteins and a few other substances. Sweetness is often connected to aldehydes and ketones, which contain a carbonyl group.
 Umami
Beef, lamb, parmesan, roquefort cheese, soy sauce and fish sauce.
Umami is the name for the taste sensation produced by compounds such as glutamate, and are commonly found in fermented and aged foods. In English, it is also described as "meatiness", "relish" or "savoriness". The Japanese word comes from umai for yummy, keen, or nice. Umami is considered a fundamental taste in Chinese and Japanese cooking, but is not discussed as much in Western cuisine.
 Bitterness
Coffee, unsweetened chocolate, bitter melon, beer, bitters, olives and citrus peel
The bitter taste is perceived by many to be unpleasant, sharp, or disagreeable. Common bitter foods and beverages include coffee, unsweetened chocolate, bitter melon, beer, bitters, olives, citrus peel, many plants in the Brassicaceae family, dandelion greens and escarole. Quinine is also known for its bitter taste and is found in tonic water.
 Saltiness
Saltiness is a taste produced primarily by the presence of sodium ions. Other ions of the alkali metals group also taste salty.
Other
Fattiness
Calcium
Other other: Dryness, Metallicness, Prickliness/hotness, Coolness, Numbness, Heartiness (Kokumi) and Temperature
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste
The myth about the tounge map.
The Tongue Map: Tasteless Myth Debunked
The Tongue Map a Urban Legend
Smell
I think this sense is interesting because it is intangible. When you taste something, you physically touch something, but with smell you don`t. I`m thinking smell is a great sense to work with when planning suprises. You don`t know it is there. Before it is too late maybe?
Smell or olfaction is the other "chemical" sense. Unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Odour molecules possess a variety of features and thus excite specific receptors more or less strongly. This combination of excitatory signals from different receptors makes up what we perceive as the molecule's smell.
In the brain, olfaction is processed by the olfactory system. Olfactory receptor neurons in the nose differ from most other neurons in that they die and regenerate on a regular basis. The inability to smell is called anosmia. Some neurons in the nose are specialized to detect pheromones.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfaction
 Picture: The Nasal Ranger
aka field olfactometer.
Nasal Ranger: Youtube clip
(ol-fac-tom-e-ter) n 1: a portable odor detecting and measuring device; 2: a nasal organoleptic instrument; 3: instrument for measuring ambient odor dilution-to-threshhold, D/T; 4: a scentometer (slang); 5: “Odor Scope”
Monell Chemical Senses Center
Flavour
Taste is not the same as flavour ,it includes the smell of a food as well as its taste.
Flavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat, may also occasionally determine flavor. The flavor of the food, as such, can be altered with natural or artificial flavorants, which affect these senses.
Flavorant is defined as a substance that gives another substance flavor, altering the characteristics of the solute, causing it to become sweet, sour, tangy, etc.
Of the three chemical senses, smell is the main determinant of a food item's flavor. While the taste of food is limited to sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory (umami) – the basic tastes – the smells of a food are potentially limitless. A food's flavor, therefore, can be easily altered by changing its smell while keeping its taste similar. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in artificially flavored jellies, soft drinks and candies, which, while made of bases with a similar taste, have dramatically different flavors due to the use of different scents or fragrances. The flavorings of commercially produced food products are typically created by flavorists.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavour
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