Taste

Abstract

What we ordinarily refer to as taste is not in fact a pure taste sensation but includes aspects of smell, touch and temperature; furthermore, the accompanying sights and sounds and the recollections of other flavours also influence our perception of how something tastes. Strictly speaking, taste includes only those sensations mediated by the gustatory nerve fibres. These sensations have four basic qualities: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Experientially, the perceptions distributed by the gustatory nerves are relatively poor; the finer qualities are mediated by the olfactory nerves, as witnessed by the flatness of taste during an ordinary cold.