Abstract
The nineteenth century concept of sweet as a “basic” taste implied that sweetness was psychologically unitary. But if sweetness is unitary, then why don’t all sweeteners taste alike? One possible answer is that various sweetener molecules can be discriminated from one another by non-sweet attributes (e.g., bitterness, slow onset, persistence of sweetness, etc.). Another possible answer is that sweetness itself varies across sweeteners.
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References
Blakeslee AF (1935) A dinner demonstration of threshold differences in taste and smell. Science 81: 504–507
Hahn H (1949) Beiträge zur Reizphysiologie. Scherer, Heidelberg
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Bartoshuk, L.M. (1987). Is Sweetness Unitary? An Evaluation of the Evidence for Multiple Sweets. In: Dobbing, J. (eds) Sweetness. ILSI Human Nutrition Reviews. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1429-1_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1429-1_3
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