What Sense Is More Dominant: Taste or Smell?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to learn which sense is more dominant: taste or smell. Methods/Materials Informed consent was obtained from 20 people: ten of each gender. I had all test subjects participate in a private hall to do blindfolded taste tests. I would place a strong, fragrant food under their nose, to offset the aroma of what was placed in their mouth. The goal was to see if I could deceive the sense into thinking they tasted what was under their nose, rather than what was put into their mouth. If they could be deceived, smell was more dominant. If they couldn't be deceived, taste was more dominant. Results After testing. My results had shown me taste was the more dominant sense. 51/60 trials resulted in taste being the dominant sense. 86.7% of male trials resulted taste, the other 10% resulted in smell. 83.3% of female trials resulted in taste, while the other 16.7 % percent resulted in smell. As you can see, females had a better sense of smell than males. Conclusions/Discussion To conclude, taste was dominant over sense. My project demonstrated that contrary to popular belief, is not entirely dependent on smell. When the test subjects are given a smell to offset that of what they actually tasted, it will not affect their ability to determine what they are eating. This project's contributed knowledge to the field of neurology(how the brain and senses work).

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0796

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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