This group of people could have more taste buds than average (medium) tasters up to sixteen times. As a result, this group of people is more sensitive to the oral somatosensory attribute of food. In other words, this group of people can experience the taste more intensely than the normal (medium) and the non-tasters. Statistically, 25 to 30 percent of populations are classified as supertasters.
There are fascinating facts to consider regarding taste in human perception, which impacts personal ideas and thought. We are all born with different taste worlds due to the density of the taste buds, upon which researchers can categorise populations into three different groups
With respect to objective of designing a collaborative performance between music and taste, understanding the nature, possibilities, and limitation of human gustation is crucially essential. This section comprises research outcomes that emphasize on crossmodal correspondences in flavour perception.
An experiment conducted by Pam Dalton gives a piece of convincing evidence underlining the interaction between the olfactory and the gustatory perceptions. In the experiment, participants were given a pair of identical containers with a liquid (colourless and odourless). One of them has a benzaldehyde (an organic compound which has a characteristic odour like almond and cherry). Participants had to specify which container had the benzaldehyde. The result showed that when participants obtained the saccharin in their mouth during the specification, benzaldehyde's odour had been perceived more intensely comparing to without any taste solution in their mouth. In contrast, monosodium glutamate (MSG) did not give any effect on participants' abilities. Intriguingly, Japanese participants tended to have more reaction toward MSG solution but not with saccharin. It showed the cultural mediation in this crossmodal correspondence. In Japanese culture, an almond in savoury cuisine can be found regularly, compared with the western culture that almond usually found in sweet cuisine. The result showed that multisensory integration ability could be different according to past experiences and cultural aspects, which is, in this case, home cuisine.
According to the terminology of the words flavour and taste, as simplification, the taste is one attribute in contribution of flavor; and flavour is the integration of multiple inputs. It could be said that flavour might be the most multisensory of our everyday experience.
The auditory interaction has been rated by consumers as the least important sense contributing to flavour experience. On the contrary, variant reports mention that auditory contribution to flavour perception is as equally significant as other senses. The results show that auditory influences are related to oral-somatosensory. For example, Zampini and Spence (2004) indicateed that changing the self-generate biting sounds that participants heard can change people's perception of the potato chips' crispiness and freshness.
First of all, for clarification, the words “flavour” and “taste” are often misused and misunderstood regarding their origins and quality.
“Orthonasal” refers to a smell perception that occurs during sniffing, and it is used to identify aromas of food.
A recent experiment on flavour perception and multisensory experience has shown that external stimuli that are not directly related to food itself impact the human perception of flavour. This factor has been carefully thought in a fine dining restaurant settings, such as lighting or background music.
The concrete evidence were shown in an experiment on ambient lighting in wine tasting. Results showed that participants' satisfaction rates were significantly increased when red ambient lighting was displayed during red wine tasting compared with green ambient lighting.
Background music is another topic of ambient influence which has been studied consistently. Researchers have pointed out that people persistently match sound attributes, such as pitch, articulation, volume, or even type of instrument, with taste and flavour.
In flavour experience, the olfactory attributes have contributed a majority part.
There are two types of smell: "orthonasal" and "retronasal".
“Taste” spatially happens in the oral cavity when nutrition stimulus contacts with the taste buds located on our tongue and transmitted the signal to our brain (gustatory cortex) to adjudge which taste is perceived. There are five basic tastes (anticipated more)
· “Flavour” does not only contain its territories in the oral cavity, but also spreads out. In general, flavour means a combination among stimuli: gustatory, olfactory, visual, auditory, ambient, and cognitive influences. In a simple description, perception of flavour is a combination of numerous stimuli causing effects on a gustatory experience, whether taste, aroma, oral texture, somatosensory, or even individual’s background. The combination of multiple senses opens up a whole new level of experience and creates new possibilities for additional descriptive words other than essential taste words, such as fruity, meaty, floral, creamy, and so on.
Apart from the colour attribute of food that influences the flavour perception, a large body of research indicates that tableware's colour and shape also influence flavour perception. A frozen strawberry mousse was rated 10 percent sweeter and 15 percent more flavourful when eaten from a white plate than a black plate (Piqueras-Fiszman et al., 2012), and food served on round plates was "sweeter" than that on an angular plate (Stewart and Goss, 2013). Also, there were experimentations on effects of plating (food arrangement) on flavour perception.
This group of people has an average tastebuds density. Fifty percent of people are in this category.
Numerous researchers reported the impacts of colours on flavour perception. For example, changing the hue and intensity of a food's colour can influence the flavour perception's identity and intensity.
The topic of somatosensory and gustatory interaction in flavour perception has not been studied as much as other contributions, but researchers have found some prominent potentials over the past years.
Reports demonstrated that the rating of flavour intensity decreased as the viscosity of the liquid increased. Apart from oral-somatosensory, several reports underlie the influence of touching sense over the flavour perception. For instance, it has been reported that the weight of cutlery and the feeling of food in hand influence the flavour perception.
One of the essential experiments showed the observation on the influence of colour changing in drinks. For instance, by changing the strawberry-flavour drink's hue into a green colour, most people would perceive it as a lime taste. In a more controlled experiment by Morrot and colleagues showed that students in a wine degree class using descriptive words (e.g., aroma) of red wine to describe the white wine that was dyed red. This result showed the power of visual perception over orthonasal olfaction. In another similar experimentation, an identical result was observed even when participants were told to ignore what they saw. This phenomenon occurs from the statistical correspondence of previous experience in our consciousness, which creates the expectation about the flavour's identity and intensity as we always see what we will eat in advance. If the perceiving flavour is matched with an expectation, there is a possibility that positive feedback might occur. On the other hand, if the perceiving flavour is mismatched, there is a large possibility for negative feedback. There are several examples of disconfirmation (mismatched) experimentation. In Moir's (1936) experimentation, he had set-up a diner with many inappropriately coloured foods. There were many reports about off-flavour of the food, and some cases reported ill. The concept of conscious expectation is consistently used in fine dining restaurants, including Gaggan Anand restaurant.
“Retronasal” refers to a smell which derives from the air that pulses out from the back of our nose when we swallow. In flavour perception, it is the retronasal smell that gives an enhancement to a flavour sensation. One little experiment suggested doing in order to feel the emphasis of retronasal smell is to put an encapsulated fruit (e.g., a grape) in your mouth while you close both of your nostrils and give it some chews before removing your hand from the nostrils. When air from the nose flows into the oral cavity, it suddenly arises the grape's aroma.
In the topic of crossmodal correspondences on flavour perception, many intriguing factors are both directly and indirectly relevant to the research topic. As described above, all sensory attributes have an affection to the flavour perception, whether visual, auditory, olfactory, or somatosensory factors. Beyond intrinsic sensory attributes, external attributes, such as environmental factors, also modulate the flavour perception. Additionally, it has been shown that cognitive factors, such as branding, labelling, and pricing, also impact flavour perception.
What is important here is the acknowledgement of the possibility and limitation of the topic of flavour. With regard to human sensory perceptions, especially apart from visual and auditory, other senses seem detached from musical performances and the musical world in general. How intriguing it is going to be if we could use other senses to perceive music. Or even more interestingly, how can we, as a performer and musical creator, design the whole performance that gives pleasure to all human senses?
