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QUALITATIVE EVALUATION OF TASTE STIMULI BY CROSS‐MODALITY MATCHING WITH A COLOR SYSTEM: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY
Author(s) -
GUINARD JEANXAVIER,
ROSS LISA,
GUTIERREZ ANGELITA MARIN
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of sensory studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.61
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 1745-459X
pISSN - 0887-8250
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-459x.1996.tb00047.x
Subject(s) - taste , sweetness , modality (human–computer interaction) , psychology , communication , stimulus modality , cognitive psychology , set (abstract data type) , umami , audiology , artificial intelligence , mathematics , pattern recognition (psychology) , sensory system , computer science , medicine , neuroscience , programming language
The taste quality of 27 stimuli equi‐intense to 100 mM NaCl was described by 10 subjects using cross‐modality matching with Munsell colors. Subjects were instructed to use one color for each perceived taste quality. An initial set of 9 stimuli covering the range of taste qualities was used by the subjects to build their own spectrum of colors to match taste qualities. Subjects then used their system to describe the quality of 18 sweet and/or bitter stimuli. All subjects were able to develop and consistently use Munsell colors to describe taste quality. This psychophysical method for taste description could allow for a better discrimination among taste stimuli than the traditional use of five adjectives. Three‐dimensional plots in L, a, b coordinates of the color spaces produced by the subjects suggest sweetness and bitterness may not be unitary qualities, and that semantics may not be sufficient to describe taste quality.