do words affect our sense of taste?

[Guest Carm]

yes, yes, i know...the question seems really dumb, i don't even know what branch of science it is. but i can't change my science project any more....please...... i've been searching the internet for hours, i cant find anything....so, do words affect our sense of taste? Like, if you give someone 2 cookies(exactly the same) and say that one of the cookies are better, will it make them think that way?

[aommaster]

I think it does psychologically. I don't really know how it works, but the brain beleives that one of the cookies tastes better, and therefore, you enjoy the taste more. You will need to ask a professional on this though. I don't know WHY it works!

[Encrypted]

Hey that is an excellent question!

 

I say experiment. Get a bunch of your friends and try it!

 

Encrypted

[Rasori]

Well...

I think of the old "Man, this tastes GREAT! What is it?" "Squid." "PTOOEY!!!!" kind of conversation. Y'know, where people are told about what it is and then they decide it's disgusting. So I suppose psychologically there could be something.

Not that it could be proven, but I tend to think the brain (or unconcious, your choice) sets limits on us. In most cases these limits are good, and also can be broken (for instance, strength- PM me if you want me to explain that idea more though), but in some cases it's a limit as simple as 'gosh, that's gross!' Hence the reason most people would have the above reaction.

[BrainMan]

There are a few directions you could go with this. Here are a few things that might get you started:

 

1) Look up the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (or the Whorfian hypothesis). Should be lots of info on this on the internet.

 

2) Look up info on "expectancy effects" (aolong with taste), and you might find something useful. ( For example: http://www.acs.appstate.edu/~garberll/effectsoffoodcolor.htm ). Look at the relations of taste and other things, like smell, to get some idea of what it might mean for words to have an effect on taste.

 

3) As someone else suggested, just play around and experiment. Blindfold people and tell them they have never had the food before. Give the food really strange names or slip in a "this is really good" or "this tastes like dirt" and see how that affects what people say about the food. [You might use normal, everyday food and put it in a blender so people can't tell what it is without taste...]

[iglak]

Penn & Teller did an experiment where they had someone in a resteraunt give some tables a "water list" (like a wine list). the person asked if they wanted to taste some to decide, and he brought out a plate of different water bottles, and had them taste them. when he poured some samples into their glasses he said things like "now this one is supposed to have an orange taste to it" or "i think this one actually tastes a lot clearer than the others". the tasters always agreed with him, and said they could really taste the differences.

 

all of the water came directly from the hose out back.

[psi20]

I think words do affect taste.

 

I'm a vegetarian, or so I think. When I was like seven, my cousin gave me a bag of crackers so I ate them. They were pretty good, since I ate like five of them. Then I read the ingredients. Shrimp...

I ran to the trash can, spat out everything I had in my mouth, turned on the faucet, rinsed my mouth out for half a minute, ran to the bathroom, tried to make myself barf up everything I had just eaten, failed with that, rinsed my mouth out some more, brushed my teeth, rinsed out my mouth out some more, and then ran out shouting , "DAMN YOU HENRY! YOU GAVE ME THESE SHRIMP CRACKERS!"

[Sorcerer]

I was reading an article in New Scientist about a month back, it had to do with the psychology of Brand names, apparently people who said they prefered Coke often chose the Pepsi in blind trials, I think this is an example of words.... perhaps maybe image, effecting taste.

[blike]

You also shoudl check into stage hypnosis, where the hypnotist makes suggestions about what the participants are eating. The show I went to the participants were eating lemons as if they were apples and they seemed to be enjoying it. Then he told them what they were eating and then were gagging, puckering, etc etc. Just something to look into, not really something I would base my paper on though