Powerpoints

Question 1

How are we more like mushrooms than plants?

Answer 1

Water is held together by kytin, plants do not have this. Mushrooms don’t make their own food and they also have a tail like we did at one point.

Question 2

What is signal transduction?

Answer 2

Information carried from a sense organ to the brain.

Question 3

What is perception?

Answer 3

The acquisition and processing of sensory information, “our response to the outside world”.

Question 4

How have our senses been shaped by our environment to capture information and translate it to a language the nervous system understands?

Answer 4

Sharks’ eyes are on the side of their heads so they can detect a predator or threat.

Question 5

Bottom-up vs top-down?

Answer 5

Bottom-up is a response to the sensation when it is coming in (something is sour ie), top-down is when your brain is responding to what it is (it’s lemon ie).

Question 6

Active vs passive sensing?

Answer 6

Active is when we engage our sensory systems with a percept, like eating. Passive is when the stimuli engages you, like when the lights go out.

Question 7

Analytic vs synthetic perception?

Answer 7

Analytic is first, you see how one thing impacts a system and then you break it apart. Synthetic is the whole big picture.

Question 8

How do reaction and memory play a role in flavor perception?

Answer 8

Familiar smells will make you think the flavor will be the same, (the sharks swimming and smelling sunblock example).

Question 9

What is a discrimination threshold?

Answer 9

Smallest detectable movement above whatever the initial intensity was.

Question 10

What is psychophysics?

Answer 10

The oldest branch of experimental psychology. The study of the relationship between a stimuli and sensory experience.

Question 11

What is the difference between detection and identification and terminal thresholds?

Answer 11

Detection is the point at which stimuli gains entrance to the mind. Identification is the point where you know that something is there/what it is. Terminal is no matter how much the increase, you will feel no more (ex: pain).

Question 12

What are the sensory attributes of food?

Answer 12

Appearance, aroma, texture, flavor and taste.

Question 13

Orthonasal vs retronasal?

Answer 13

Orthonasal is when you breathe in, retronasal is when you swallow.

Question 14

Why is flavor a top-down process?

Answer 14

Concept of any flavor is formed in the brain.

Question 15

Why is flavor context dependent?

Answer 15

You’d rather have an oyster at the beach than at a Honda dealership.

Question 16

What are the chemical senses vs the physical senses?

Answer 16

Chemical are olfaction (smell) and gustation (taste). Physical are hearing, touch, and vision.

Question 17

What is the life expectancy of a taste bud?

Answer 17

7-10 days.

Question 18

What is sensory evaluation?

Answer 18

The scientific discipline used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret human reactions to those characteristics of foods and beverages as they are perceived by the senses of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.

Question 19

What are the three different types of sensory tests?

Answer 19

Difference - To see if people can tell differences.
Affective - Liking test.
Descriptive - Generates vocabulary.

Question 20

What is codification?

Answer 20

Organization of techniques/ingredients based on sensory traits.

Question 21

When do you use a ranking test?

Answer 21

When the objective is to determine how a single sensory attribute varies over three or more samples.

Question 22

What are degrees of freedom?

Answer 22

The number of categories to which data can be assigned freely (the number of categories - 1). “Free” because the leftover category is forced.

Question 23

When do you use a triangle test?

Answer 23

When the objective is to determine if there is a difference between two samples.

Question 24

What are sensory illusions?

Answer 24

When your brain fills in gaps in perception (the elephant with a million legs ex).

Question 25

How do we store information in our memory?

Answer 25

We encode information and store it for later recall when something stimulates a recall of this information.

Question 26

What are top down EFFECTS vs bottom up EFFECTS?

Answer 26

Top down would be plating style, aesthetics influences your liking, color, location, etc. Bottom up would be like salt masking the bitterness of coffee by not letting the bitter compound get to the brain.

Question 27

What is the difference between psychographics and demographics?

Answer 27

Psychographics - Dividing market into personality traits, values, attitudes, interests and lifestyles of consumers, allows you to engage in product design and marketing. Demographics - Pre-determined, age, gender, etc.

Question 28

If there is no head space for volatile compounds when you’re cooking what will occur?

Answer 28

Different aromas will be present.

Question 29

How do you draw an aromatic benzyne ring?

Answer 29

A hexagon with a double line on every other side to show a double bond, the double bonds are constantly rotating.

Question 30

How can carbonation inhibit aroma perception?

Answer 30

Big bubbles of CO2 in your mouth are inhibiting the flavor perception.