CHAPTER 16 - The Chemical Senses

Question 1

What is anosmia? How does anosmia change people’s life experience?

Question 2

What are some ways that the chemical sense differ from vision, touch, and the cutaneous sense?

Question 3

What is neurogenesis, and what function does it serve?

Question 4

What are the five basic taste qualities?

Question 5

How is taste quality linked to a substance’s physiological effect?

Question 6

Describe the anatomy of the taste system, including the receptors and central destinations

Question 7

What is the evidence for population coding and specificity coding in taste? Is it possible to choose between the two?

Question 8

What kinds of evidence support the idea that different people may have different taste experiences? What mechanisms may be responsible for these differences?

Question 9

Why is it inaccurate to describe human olfaction as microsmatic?

Question 10

What is the difference between detecting odours and identifying odours?

Question 11

How well can people identify odours? What is the role of memory in identifying odours?

Question 12

Describe some genetically determined individual differences in odour perception. What are some of the consequences of losing the ability to smell?

Question 13

How is olfaction affected by COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s disease? Why is it important that loss of olfactory function precedes the main symptoms of AD by many years?

Question 14

Why has it been difficult to organize odours and relate odours to physical properties of molecules?

Question 15

What is an odour object? What are the two stages for perceiving an odour object?

Question 16

Describe the following components of the olfactory system: the olfactory bulb, and the glomeruli. Be sure you understand the relation between olfactory receptors and olfactory receptor neurons, and between olfactory receptor neurons and glomeruli

Question 17

How do olfactory receptor neurons respond to different odorants, as determined by calcium imaging? What is an odorant’s recognition profile?

Question 18

Describe the evidence that there is a chemotopic map on the olfactory bulb. What is the difference between a chemotopic map and a perceptual map?

Question 19

What are the main structures in the olfactory system past the olfactory bulb?

Question 20

How are odours represented in the piriform cortex? How does this representation differ from the representation in the olfactory bulb?

Question 21

How has formation of the representation of odour objects in the cortex been described as being caused by experience? How is this similar to the process of forming memories?

Question 22

What is the Proust effect? What are some properties of Proustian memories?

Question 23

What is flavour perception? Describe how taste and olfaction meet in the mouth and nose and then later in the nervous system

Question 24

Describe the experiment that showed how expectations about a wine’s taste can influence taste judgments and brain responding

Question 25

Describe the experiment that demonstrates sensory-specific satiety

Question 26

What does it mean to say that there is a “community” of senses?

Question 27

Give example of connections between chemical senses and (a) pitches and instruments, (b) colours, (c) texture, (d) attention and performance

Question 28

What is the evidence that newborns can detect different taste and smell qualities? Describe the carrot juice experiment and how it demonstrates that what a mother consumes can influence infant taste preferences