Smell Versus Taste Behavioral Science Project
Human Behavioral Science Project - Does Smell Affect Taste?
This smell versus taste behavioral science project determines if your sense of smell affects your taste sense.Background:
Research information about taste perception, taste buds, and scent perception. Answer the following questions: How does your sense of taste work? How does your sense of smell work? What body structures are involved in tasting and smelling? Do your senses of smell and taste interact? If so, how?
Hypothesis:
From your research you should have an idea as to how your senses of smell and taste function. From this you will determine if your sense of smell affects the taste of the foods you eat.
Materials: (Adult supervision of kids is strongly recommended.)
- Item for smelling. Can include: an orange, banana, lemon, bottle of vanilla extract etc.
- Several candy suckers. You can buy them or have fun making your own suckers using the following kit:
| The Science of Sweets Candy Factory - ages 10 and up |
| (This kit does not contain any food items. Ingredients must be purchased separately.) |
- A number of human participants. The larger the sample the better.
- Scarf or blindfold
1. Gather materials needed for your smell versus taste behavioral science project experiment. Make sure you try your experiment on one person at a time and that none of the other participants know what is going to happen.
2. Choose an item for smelling and a flavor of sucker for tasting. Record the items you have chosen. If making your own suckers, follow the instructions carefully in your kit. Be sure to record all of the items you used. Adult supervision of kids is strongly recommended.
3. Ask your participant to close his or her eyes. Cover your participant's eyes with a blindfold. Remind your participant - no peeking!
4. Place the item you chose for smelling under the subject's nose and ask him or her to inhale the fragrance. Do not reveal what item is being used for smelling. Do not allow the participant to touch the item.
5. Now ask your participant to stick out his or her tongue.
6. Place the previously specified flavor of sucker (apple, grape, cherry etc.) on the participant's tongue long enough for them to taste it.
7. Ask your participant to identify the flavor of sucker.
8. Record the participant's answer.
9. Follow the same process with the other participants. Be sure you have enough suckers to use a fresh one for each participant.
Results:
Compare your results. Describe what you observed. Was anyone able to identify the tasted item? If so, how many? Were there any differences between the participants in age, gender, etc.? Were there any patterns that you noticed from your experiment? Was a particular group able to correctly identify the tasted item more often (ex. males or females, younger or older)? Graph and chart your data.
Conclusion:
Summarize what happened in your smell versus taste behavioral science project experiment based on your results. Explain patterns in your data. Did your data support your hypothesis? If not, explain why. Evaluate your project and make suggestions for improvements.
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