Perception of Flavor Quality: Multisensory and Cognitive Processes

描述(申请人提供)：当食物或饮料进入口腔时，由几种感官刺激所激活的感官信号会产生味道感知：味觉(味觉)、嗅觉(回溯，因为空气中的颗粒通过口腔后部到达嗅觉感受器)、体感(质地、温暖、寒冷、刺激性)，甚至视觉(颜色)和听觉(咀嚼声音)。因此，味觉涉及到多感官的相互作用和整合。同时，味觉也受到食物刺激的语境以及人们的知识和期望的强烈影响，即受更高水平的认知过程的影响。然而，关于味道感知中感觉和认知过程之间的相互作用，人们知之甚少。区分发生在不同风味加工水平上的相互作用是至关重要的。利用人类最先进的心理物理(行为)方法，本项目测试了关于混合味道感知中感觉和认知加工之间相互作用的三个主要假说：(1)第一系列实验(研究1-3)测试了这样的假设，即味道刺激环境通过一种类似适应的机制改变了对混合味道的识别和对味道成分的感知强度，这与对这些混合味道的识别在很大程度上取决于成分的相对感知强度的假设是一致的。(2)第二系列实验(研究4-6)检验了这样一个假设，即语言语境(在呈现之前给刺激贴上标签)通过整合信息的通用认知机制影响对味道混合物的识别，但对感知的味道强度没有相应的影响。(3) 第三个系列的实验(研究7和8)检验了这样的假设：尽管研究1-6考察的味道-刺激语境的对比(适应)效应和语言语境的同化效应会损害对味道混合物的准确识别，但逐次试验的反馈可以通过提供关于刺激分布的统计特性和关于标签与味道的关联的信息来帮助后续的表现。反馈可以使识别性能提高到贝叶斯统计定义的接近最佳水平。除了促进我们对味道感知的感觉-认知机制的理解外，该项目的发现还对食物的选择和食物的摄入量产生了影响。食物和饮料的味道是食物摄入量的重要决定因素，因此对营养和体重的调节很重要。了解感觉和认知过程在食品和饮料风味成分识别中的相互作用，并了解反馈在帮助准确识别方面的作用，可能被证明对开发更好的吞咽、饮食、营养和体重等疾病的治疗方法有价值。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): When foods or beverages are taken in the mouth, the resulting flavor perceptions emerge from sensory signals activated by stimulation of several senses: taste (gustation), olfaction (retronasally, as air-borne particles reach olfactory receptor through the back of the mouth), somatosensation (texture, warmth, cold, pungency), and even vision (color) and hearing (sounds of mastication). Flavor perception therefore involves multisensory interactions and integration. At the same time, flavor perceptions are also strongly influenced by the context of the food stimuli and by people's knowledge and expectations, that is, by higher-level, cognitive processes. Little is known, however, about the interaction between sensory and cognitive processes in flavor perception. It is critical to distinguish interactions taking place at different levels of flavor processing. Capitalizing on state-of- the-art psychophysical (behavioral) methods in humans, the present project tests three main hypotheses about the interactions between sensory and cognitive processing in the perception of flavor mixtures: (1) The first series of experiments (Studies 1-3) tests the hypothesis that flavor-stimulus context modifies the identification of flavor mixtures and the perceived intensitie of the components of the flavors through an adaptation-like mechanism, consistent with the hypothesis that the identification of these mixtures rests largely on the relative perceived intensities of the components. (2) The second series of experiments (Studies 4-6) tests the hypothesis that linguistic context (labels given to the stimuli before presentation) affects the identification of flavor mixtures through the operation of a general-purpose cognitive mechanism for integrating information, but has no corresponding effect on perceived flavor intensity. (3) The third series of experiments (Studies 7 and 8) tests the hypothesis that although the contrastive (adaptation-like) effects of flavor-stimulus context and the assimilative effects of linguistic context, examined in Studies 1-6, can impair accurate identification of the flavor mixtures, trial-by-trial feedback can benefit subsequent performance by providing information about the statistical properties of the stimulus distributions and about the associations of labels with flavors. Feedback may allow identification performance to improve to near optimal levels, as defined by Bayesian statistics. Besides advancing our understanding of sensory-cognitive mechanisms of flavor perception, the findings of this project bear implications for food selection and food intake. The flavors of foods and beverages are important determinants of food intake, and hence important in the regulation of nutrition and body weight. Understanding the interactions of sensory and cognitive processes in the identification of flavor components of foods and beverages, and understanding the role of feedback in aiding accurate identification, could prove valuable to developing better treatments of disorders involving swallowing, eating, nutrition, and body weight.