Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

If you can stop somebody from smelling what they are eating, will it affect their sense of taste?

Hi,

Check out the Science Buddies Project Idea guide project on taste:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... A&from=TSW

You can look at the links under Bibliography in this project to get a careful answer, if you don't want to do the experiment yourself.

Have fun!

Barrett Tomlinson

If people plug their nose while eating food, will certain genders or age groups be able to taste the food better than others?

Hi,

You can answer most of your own questions using www.google.com. Just type some key words or your question into the search box. You can examine the hits that are shown from the search and pretty much guess which sites are going to give relevant answers. Here is a link to the search I did for you:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ta ... h&aq=f&oq=

The second hit down "taste perception with age" is very good. It is a PhD thesis which you can read about an experimental study of taste changes with age.

If you look farther down the search page(and on subsequent search pages) you will find other information likely to also be relevant. On some questions I have researched the best information was as far down as the fifth or higher page of the search results, so look extensively. If you still don't find the answer try asking the question another way and try again. Sometimes changing the search terms can make a big difference in what you find.

Good luck! This sounds like a great project!

Barrett Tomlinson

Thank you for helping me with the research for my project!

This is what I have as my question/problem right now:

If you plug your nose while eating food with the texture changes, will you still be able to determine the taste of the food within 15 seconds? Will certain genders or age groups be able to tell faster than others?

Do you have any ideas on a way I could shorten it, have it make more sense, or make it sound more scientific?

Here are a couple of ideas for you to work with.

Your project title could be something like “the sense of smell in relation to taste”. Your hypothesis would state the expected result of age and gender in relation to smell and taste.

You can brainstorm with these as a starting point.
Matthew W. Mulanax, Ph.D.

This is to barretttomlinson:

I followed the google link that you gave me. I was able to get to the PDF file you talked about. The information was very useful. Today I followed the link to review the infomation again. Once I followed the link, the second hit down was no longer a PDF file. I need to find it so I can cite it as one of my sources that I used. I have looked on the next 12 pages of hits. I can't seem to find it anywhere! I don't know what to do because it was my main source. Can you please help me find it???

Thank you!

Hi cccapener,
Is this the paper?
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/o ... 7/art00845

Taste Perception with Age: Generic or Specific Losses in Threshold Sensitivity to the Five Basic Tastes?
Authors: Mojet J.; Christ-Hazelhof E.; Heidema J.
Source: Chemical Senses, Volume 26, Number 7, September 2001 , pp. 845-860(16)
Publisher: Oxford University Press

Good luck,
Chris

Yes, I belive that is the paper I am looking for. After I follow the link that you just gave me, I not sure how to view the PDF file. After I scrolled down, it said that if I wanted to view the file I had to pay thirty dollars to view it. There is no way I could do that. Last time, I didn't have to go through that website and I didn't have to pay. Any suggestions???