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The pervasive core idea in taste is inadequate and misleading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2008

Robert P. Erickson
Robert P. Erickson
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Neurosciences, and Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708. eric@psych.duke.edu
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Abstract

The target article described the ubiquitous and often undefined idea of “basic tastes” as the basis for sensory coding in taste, and its attendant problems. The commentaries cover the full range of reaction to this argument, from full support, to qualification of the level of analysis to which “basic tastes” apply and the nature of empirical support, to full denial of either the characterization of the literature or that such characterization reveals any problem. Many commentators, and I, go on to propose other types and sources for taste analysis, which I relate to the “across-fiber pattern model.”

Type
Author's Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 91 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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