Psych Chapter 4-Smell and taste

Question 1

What is another term for smell?

Answer 1

Olfaction

Question 2

What’s another term for taste?

Answer 2

Gustation

Question 3

What type of senses are smell and taste?

Answer 3

Chemical senses because we derive these sensory experiences from chemicals in substances.

Question 4

What is the most critical function of our chemical senses?

Answer 4

Sample our food before swallowing it. We develop preferences for “safe” foods. Also a cultural input.

Question 5

What are odours?

Answer 5

Airborne chemicals that interact with receptors in the lining of our nasal passages.

Question 6

What are the 5 basic tastes we’re sensitive to?

Answer 6

Sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami.

Question 7

What’s an olfactory neuron composed of?

Answer 7

A single type of olfactory receptor which recognizes an odorant on the basis of its shape. Action potentials occur as a result of this binding.

Question 8

What are papillae?

Answer 8

Bumps on tongue that contain numerous taste buds.

Question 9

What do we detect taste with?

Answer 9

Taste buds.

Question 10

True or False? There are separate taste buds for each of the five basic tastes.

Answer 10

True

Question 11

True or False? Individual taste receptors strongly tend to concentrate at certain locations on the tongue.

Answer 11

False

Question 12

Scientists talk of a sixth taste, what is it?

Answer 12

Fat taste

Question 13

Molecules producing a savoury or meaty flavour have what in common?

Answer 13

They contain a lot of the NT glutamate.

Question 14

What is MSG?

Answer 14

Monosodium glutamate, a derivative of glutamate. It is a well-known flavour enhancer.

Question 15

How can we taste so many different tastes with only 5 or 6 taste receptors?

Answer 15

Our taste perception is strongly biased by our sense of smell and our tongues differ in their number of taste receptors.

Question 16

What are supertasters and what are they sensitive to?

Answer 16

Those with an overabundance of taste buds. Tend to avoid bitter or sugary tastes.

Question 17

Where does the information resulting from the binding of odours to sense receptors go to?

Answer 17

Enters the brain, reaches the olfactory cortex and parts of the limbic system.

Question 18

Where is the site of convergence for smell and taste?

Answer 18

A region in the frontal cortex.

Question 19

After taste information interacts with taste buds, where in the brain does it go?

Answer 19

Reaches a taste related area called the gustatory cortex, somatosensory cortex, and parts of the limbic system.

Question 20

What does the limbic system do in smell perception?

Answer 20

Parts of the limbic system, such as the amygdala, help us to distinguish pleasant from disgusting smells.

Question 21

True or False? Just the viewing of facial expressions of disgust activates the gustatory cortex.

Answer 21

True

Question 22

If damage occurs to the gustatory cortex, what occurs?

Answer 22

can’t experience disgust.

Question 23

Antidepressants enhance the activity of _______ and ________ which make us more sensitive to ______.

Answer 23

serotonin, norepinephrine, taste

Question 24

What are pheromones?

Answer 24

Odourless chemicals that serve as social signals to members of one’s species that alter our sexual behaviour.

Question 25

What is the vomeronasal organ?

Answer 25

Located in the bone between the nose and the mouth, used to detect pheromones.

Question 26

Do humans detect pheromones?

Answer 26

We don’t know. Humans don’t have a developed vomeronasal organ, we may detect them through nerve zero.

Question 27

Loss of smell and taste can occur how?

Answer 27

As part of normal aging, disease, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, olfaction disorders.

Question 28

What is the somatosensory system?

Answer 28

The system we use for touch and pain.

Question 29

What is proprioception?

Answer 29

Also called the kinesthetic sense. This is the sense of body position.

Question 30

What is the vestibular sense?

Answer 30

Our sense of equilibrium or balance.

Question 31

What are the different stimuli that activate the somatosensory system?

Answer 31

Stimuli applied to the skin such as light touch or deep pressure, hot or cold temperature, or chemical or mechanical injury that produces pain.

Question 32

What is referred pain?

Answer 32

Damage to internal organs which causes pain in a different location. Like pain in the left arm during a heart attack.

Question 33

What are mechanoreceptors?

Answer 33

We sense light touch and pressure with mechanoreceptors which are specialized nerve endings located on the ends of sensory nerves in the skin.

Question 34

What are free nerve endings?

Answer 34

Far more plentiful than specialized nerve endings and what we use to sense touch, temperature and especially pain.

Question 35

Where is the greatest concentration of nerve endings found? The least?

Answer 35

Most in the fingertips, least in the middle back.

Question 36

Before entering the spinal cord, where does information about body touch, temperature and painful stimuli travel?

Answer 36

In our somatic nerves.

Question 37

Which travels faster, pain information or touch information?

Answer 37

Touch

Question 38

What is the withdrawal reflex?

Answer 38

Local spinal reflex that causes hand to withdraw from painful stimulus.

Question 39

After activating spinal reflexes, where does touch and pain information travel?

Answer 39

Upward through parts of the brain stem and thalamus to reach the somatosensory cortex. Additional cortical areas are active during the localization of touch information, such as association areas of the parietal lobe.

Question 40

What is a threshold for pain-producing stimulus?

Answer 40

Point at which we perceive it as painful.

Question 41

Why does pain have a large emotional component?

Answer 41

That’s because information goes partly to the somatosensory cortex and partly to limbic centres in the brain stem and forebrain.

Question 42

What is the gate-control model?

Answer 42

Pain under emotional circumstances is blocked from consciousness because neural mechanisms in the spinal cord function as a “gate”, controlling the flow of sensory input to the CNS.

Question 43

What is the phantom limb illusion?

Answer 43

Pain or discomfort in the missing limb of people with amputated limbs.

Question 44

What is pain insensitivity?

Answer 44

Disorders that impair the ability to sense pain.

Question 45

What are proprioceptors?

Answer 45

Use to sense muscle stretch and force.

Question 46

What are the two kinds of proprioceptors?

Answer 46

stretch receptors embedded in our muscles and force detectors embedded in our muscle tendons.

Question 47

Where does proprioceptive information go?

Answer 47

Enters the spinal cord, travels upward through the brain stem and thalamus to reach the somatosensory and motor cortexes.

Question 48

In addition to the cochlea, what does the inner ear contain?

Answer 48

Semicircular canals.

Question 49

What are semicircular canals?

Answer 49

Filled with fluid, sense equilibrium and help us maintain our balance.

Question 50

Where does vestibular information travel?

Answer 50

Reaches part of the bran stem that controls eye muscles and triggers reflexes that coordinate eye and head movements. Also travels to the cerebellum which controls bodily responses that enable us to catch our balance when we’re falling.