Introduction:
Everyone eats all different kinds of food throughout the world. As the saying goes, “You eat with your eyes first,” and that's what this experiment is about. The curiosity for this experiment came from children because often times when a parent puts a new dish in front of a child, they look at it and say they do not like it automatically and when they taste it, their opinion stays the same. From common knowledge, flavors of food tend to have distinct colors; examples being red for strawberry, green for a vegetable of some kind, or brown and white for ice cream. Finding a connection between your senses is a common experiment that is conducted throughout labs. However throughout all the research people may not know why this topic is important but it is because that not only can the sight of food help their child's eating problems but many stores are actually altering foods appearance to make the customer not only buy the product but have their taste be impacted by it.
Most children are very are very picky eaters and now with this idea of the connection of senses it can be a groundbreaking role in the development of the new generation. If this experiment is successful then the way food is produced and consumed can be entirely different. The most common method of parents today is chopping things such as vegetables very small and putting it in a child's diet but the issue with that is that the amount you are putting in is so tiny that the child will not be getting the nutrients it needs. If we can alter the appearance of the food, for example make broccoli light brownish to mock a potato, then we not only could fix a child's health but an American obesity issue as well. A child’s perception of the food will be change for so long and just long enough until they are mature enough to eat regularly.
Another reason why this topic is so important is because the way we see things can affect what we consume. Supermarkets have been said to put pesticides on our foods not only to keep them fresh longer but to brighten them up so we get an idea of what we will taste. For example, a market may spray their apples to make them look brighter so we think they are sweeter but in reality we are just consuming a normal apple but with pesticides in it. Another example are sports drinks, they could all be the same flavor but the colors such as blue and yellow make us believe they are blue raspberry and lemon-lime. This experiment can help solve this conflict because if we can find a connection between sight and taste then we can find a way to actually make things naturally taste better but still look great.
This experiment is directly linked to biology because biology is the study of the human body and all things around it. Since this project relates to the traits of the human body such as the senses and perception a biology lab is the perfect place to conduct an experiment like this. Finding out connections the human body could be key to our society. With society constantly advancing, whether it's technologically or biologically, it is important to stay on top of the game and there's no better way to do that than to solve a question that could change life as we know it.
Hypothesis and Variables:
I believe that a person's sense of taste is directly affected by their sense of sight; most of the people will think that the different colors of pudding are the same flavors.
Variables: independent variable is the color of the pudding, dependent variable is the taste of the person
Materials and Methods:
Materials:
1. Vanilla Pudding
2. Spoons
3. 2 colors of Food coloring (colors of your choice but green and red are preferable).
4. 12 mini bowls (3 per person)
5. 4 People
Methods:
1. Take three bowls and place an equal amount of pudding in each
2. In one of the bowls of pudding put 3-5 drops of one of your colors
3. In another bowl of pudding put 3-5 drops of you other color of food coloring.
4. Using different spoons mix all of the puddings.
5. You should be left with 3 different colors of pudding
6. Take each of your puddings and give them to someone and tell them to write down what they taste for each different color of pudding.
7. Record your data.
Data:
We tested 4 people at various age levels. What we found was that three out of the four people realized that the pudding was the same flavor. We tested two middle age people and two older people. We tested two males and two females and both males realized that the pudding were the same flavor and one of the females realized that the were the same flavor. The one person who thought that the puddings were different though that the white was vanilla, the green was pistachio, and the red was strawberry.
Analysis:
Out of the four people we tested, three realized they were the same. This happened because their brains remembered the taste and texture of what they ate before. The fourth person did not realize the flavors were the same. She was not focusing on the flavors going to her brain and tastebuds she was too caught up in the colors of the pudding. According to our studies, if people thoroughly taste what they are eating then they will realize that they are the same, but if they get to caught up in the colors then they will think the flavors are different. From our results, 25% of our subjects thought the flavors were different and 75% knew they were the same.
Conclusion:
After conducting the experiment I revealed that my hypothesis was not correct. It was incorrect because everyone has their own taste buds and for three out of the four people they were able to reference their memory from the regular white vanilla pudding. In the experiment three of the four people thought the pudding was the same and the fourth thought the green was pistachio, the red was strawberry, and the white was vanilla. They are the best example of the power and reasoning for this experiment.
This experiment taught me that not only can the senses be connected but that the senses are also strongly connected to the brain. It may be possible that the senses and brain and more connected than two individual senses by themself. This is shown in the results when 75% of our subjects knew the puddings were the same while only 25% thought they were different. It also taught more about the human body and ways the body relates and and how the parts of the body help each other function.
In conclusion, this experiment tested whether or not a person's sense of taste is directly related to their sense of sight. We tested four different people and gave them 3 different colors of the same pudding and had them taste all three and describe the flavors. Only one of the four thought they were different. The next study we can do is whether the brain and the senses have a stronger connection than the senses themselves. Discovering new things about humans is what biology is all about and this experiment gave us a good idea of what we can improve on in society as well as specific parts of the human body.
Graph:
Work Cited:
http://sensing.konicaminolta.us/2013/01/how-color-affects-your-perception-of-food/