ABSTRACT
Research into the sensory perception of food flavor has generally been conducted for each of the senses (taste, aroma, texture, or color) in isolation or at best in simple mixtures, e.g., looking at the influence of one component on the perception of another. Although it is commendable to develop a fundamental understanding of the senses in this manner, we may draw inaccurate conclusions if we attempt to extrapolate findings from simple model systems to the complex world of real foodstuffs. For example, Stevens [1] showed that taste components in a mixture may be detected at a fraction of their sensory threshold concentrations as measured individually. This effect is thought to result from so-called generous integration at a neural level. Drewnowski [2] highlighted one implication of this in relation to caffeine, which exerts a considerable influence on the flavor experience of foods, despite typically being present at near or below threshold values. Experience from research into other sensory modalities has shown that it is simplistic to investigate the senses individually and that such an approach fails to recognize the multisensory nature of our interaction with the world around us. Crossmodal integration, the neurological combination of signals from different sensory systems [3], can mean that subjective experience within one sensory modality is affected by the stimulation of another. Examples may be drawn from each of the senses, for example, the McGurk effect (visions influencing what we hear [4]) or, in the field of flavor research, the effect of color on perceived flavor. DuBose and associates [5] showed that the color of a beverage could influence judgments of its flavor. For example, changing the color of a cherry flavored beverage from red to green caused a significant number of panelists to believe that the drink was lime-flavored.
