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How does color affect taste perception?

Rebecca Bunyan
ERWC Period 4
10/14/2016

Table of Contents:
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I. Part One: Description

Page 2-3
II. Part Two: Research
Page 4-6
III. Part Three: Reflection
...Page 7-8
IV. Part Four: Works
Cited..Page 9
V. Part Five: Annotated BibliographyPage
10-12
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Project Description
In any science class I have taken during high school at Santa Susana High School, we

have done labs based on the subject we are learning at that time. We are taught to perform a lab,

record data, and make conclusions due to that data. With this knowledge, I would like to create

my own experiment with the help of one of the Science teachers at my school. I will create a

hypothesis, create a lab, perform the lab, record the data, and decide based on that data whether

my hypothesis was correct or not. The lab I will be creating will be based on the question does

the color of food affect our taste perception? I expect to learn more about creating an

experiment and hope to learn about the way color affects your perception. This project will help

me later in life when I take up a career in nursing because it will give me the ability to look at a

problem and think of an option of how to solve or find the cause of the problem. For example, if

someone comes in with stomach pain, I will think about the different options and treatments I

could do on that patient to discover what is causing the patient's stomach pain.

During this project, I hope to gain a greater understanding of the scientific method by

using the steps of the scientific method. First, I will start by asking a question. I will then

conduct research around that question and create a hypothesis based on that research. I will then

create and carry out an experiment testing my hypothesis. The experiment will be a group of as

many people as I can get to participate in my study, who will have 4 bowls of unflavored, food

colored yogurt in front of them. These people will be unaware that these yogurts are unflavored.

They will tell me what flavor they think the yogurts are after they taste each one and I will record

the data. I will then let them in on the fact that they really werent flavored at all. After the

experiment, I will be analyzing the data and drawing a conclusion. The skills I have been taught

during the varied science classes I have taken will help me carry out these steps in order to reach
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my goal. I anticipate a difficulty of finding people who are willing to be test subjects during this

experiment. I will also need to do this experiment multiple times with multiple groups of people

in order to make sure that my results are accurate. Resources I will use are the school news to

advertise my need for test subjects for my experiment.

I am extremely interested in science and the act of creating an experiment all on my own,

carrying out the experiment on my own, and collecting data and coming to a conclusion on my

own. I will say that from approval to completion, this process will take about six months

depending on how long it takes for me to find people willing to be test subjects in the

experiment.
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Senior Research Paper

My first source called How Color Affects Food Choices, gives me a lot of helpful

information to create my experiment for my senior project. The major ones were the anatomy of

taste and the anatomy of color. In order to do my senior project, I feel I need to first get a good

understanding on how we taste things and the entire anatomy behind it. I also feel that to conduct

my senior project and make an accurate experiment, I need to understand the anatomy of color

and how that all works inside our brains.

A few other helpful things were the charts in the document. It gives a chart relating

certain colors to certain foods, which colors are produced naturally and which ones can only be

made artificially and it also has a chart on what different colors mean in different countries. For

example, in the chart relating certain colors to certain foods, it has purple and blue associated

with eggplant, blackberry, purple cabbage, and plums. This chart I just mentioned is definitely

something I will considering while creating my experiment. I am thinking of using that chart to

compare my data to see how close they compare or how much they might differ.

In the next article called The Effect of Color on Flavor Perception, they describe an

experiment where they take plain yogurt and dye them different colors. They then gave them to

people who were unaware of the experiment and had them taste them and guess what flavor they

thought the different colored yogurts were. This article will give me a good baseline for creating

my experiment and to also see what someone else's results were.

I plan on doing something similar with my experiment. I plan on taking water or some

other clear and flavorless liquid and dying them with five different flavorless food colorings.

Then having a booth at the STEAM fair to get as many people to participate in the experiment as
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possible. I will then compare my data with the data found in the experiment performed in the

article. I will also use the data they got during their experiment to see how closely mine related

to theirs. The number of people they had who guessed the flavor incorrectly but guessed a

flavor relating to the dye color: 25 50 60 50 out of four test cycles.

My last resources is a video titled How Color Affects Taste. In this video, it explains a

similar experiment to the one listed above but while using unflavored gelatine. The man talking

in the video, William Lidwell, describes the different data they acquire after doing the test. He

says we taste with our eyes long before we taste with our mouths. I am going to use this

statement to present my senior project just starting off by saying that quote to the audience. Get

them thinking about that phrase and then present my experiment.

Another thing I found interesting about this video was that when they would tell there

tasters that the gelatine had no flavor at all, they refuse to believe them. Doesnt matter the age or

gender whether it be a child, an adult, a female or male, they think the experimenter is lying. I

think that is something I will also take note of during my experiment. Even though it doesnt

really have to do with my senior project, it is still an interesting thing to observe to see whether

or not the people who participate in my experiment, believe me in the fact that the food actually

had no flavor to it.

Possible further research I could do when I continue my senior project is the idea I

mentioned earlier of the taste testers who dont believe the experimenter when they tell them that

the food is not flavored at all. It would be interesting to look into why the tasters dont believe

them when they are let in on the secret. What happens in their brain when they are told the flavor

they experienced is false and wrong. I also think that looking into the actual brain sensory that
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happens during the taste test that makes them perceive the different flavors when they arent

actually there would be an interesting way to expand my knowledge on the subject.

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Reflection

I feel that my experiment will go well. I dont really see much that could go wrong and I

think my data will be as accurate as I can possibly get it. I think that getting a wide variety of

people of all genders and races and hopefully of as many ages as possible at the STEAM fair will

make the results a lot more accurate because this gives a majority of the people around the world

a good representation in my experiment. I also think that since I am getting all types of people in

my experiment, it will make it unbiased because Im not just surveying girls or just surveying

white males or mexican girls. I also feel that my experiment is easy to recreate by someone else

who was curious about the same thing I am or testing out too if my data is as accurate as a

highschool student could get.

I dont really predict that many problems occurring during my experiment. The biggest

problem I see happening is people talking about it after they do the experiment at the STEAM

fair. People like to talk a lot and I am afraid that somehow word will get out to other people that

the yogurt I use is unflavored and it will cause my results to be swayed because people will come

in and guess unflavored for all of them. If word does get out that the yogurt I use is unflavored, it

will cause my results to be almost inconclusive because if I have a lot of people saying that they

didnt taste anything in all four bowls, that will make me have to ask the question of whether or

not word got out to those people or if they really just didnt taste anything. I could also see

myself running out of yogurt or spoons during the fair and having to close my booth early. This

could cause the varied results I wanted to not be as varied because I couldnt get as many people

as I wanted. I am also a little unsure as to how I will keep the yogurts cold besides just bringing a
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giant ice chest with me full of yogurt. Other than those few problems, I think the experiment will

go very well.

The only real way I can think to solve that issue of people telling others about the yogurt

being unflavored, is just to let the tasters know not to tell other people because it will make my

experiment inconclusive. It will be hard to keep people from running off to their parents or

friends and telling them about the experiment and then having those people come and do the

experiment with that prior knowledge. I dont want anybody besides my mentor and myself

knowing anything about the experiment before they come and try the yogurts. The only thing I

plan on telling the tasters is that there are 4 different yogurts in front of you and I would like you

to taste each one individually and tell me which flavor you think they are.

I feel great about this project, I really feel that this project has given me a better

understanding of the scientific method and has really helped me develop my problem solving

skills and has helped me prepare to become a nurse. I think that using these better developed

problem solving skills and my better understanding of the scientific method while getting my

nursing degree and working in the field as a nurse will help me immensely throughout my career.
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Works Cited

Magoulas, Costa, "How color affects food choices" (2009). UNLV

Theses/Dissertations/Professional Papers/Capstones. Paper 552.

The Effect of Color on Flavor Perception. The Effect of Color on Flavor Perception. N.p., n,d.

Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

The Great Courses. How Color Affects Taste. Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, October 7,

2014. Web. 21 September 2016.

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Annotated Bibliography

1. http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1553&context=thesesdissertations

Magoulas, Costa, "How color affects food choices" (2009). UNLV

Theses/Dissertations/Professional Papers/Capstones. Paper 552.

The main purpose of this article is to help hospitality industry employees develop a better

insight into the world of taste. It achieves this by discussing the anatomy of taste and color,

showing some different ways color are associated in different cultures, and showing diagrams of

what colors are related to what foods. I would say the possible audience for the work would be

kids attending college who have signed up for the class. The relevance of the information is very

relevant in relation to what I am researching but I don't know if the information is relevant to this

day just because it is from 2009. There could have been new developments in the world of ideas

based around what I am researching since 2009. I really like the diagrams showing the synthetic

food colorings and natural food coloring. The bias in this is that they assume you are taking a

class that is based around a hospitality industry major which is still helpful, but not as helpful if

it was just written as a textbook type of thing.

2. http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/nsfall05/LabpacketArticles/TheEffectofColoronFl

avorP.html

The Effect of Color on Flavor Perception. The Effect of Color on Flavor Perception. N.p., n,d.

Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

The main purpose of this article is to create an experiment and perform it to show how color

affects the flavor perception. The author starts off by talking about the purpose of the experiment
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and why they are performing it. Then, they go on to describing how taste works in humans. Then

goes into the actual procedure of the experiment and the data results at the end of the experiment.

I would say the intended audience is jst anyone who really wants to read it and is interested in

the way color affects perception. This is relevant to my research because it gives me a base to go

off on when I create my own experiment for my actual senior project. I love that they give me a

timeline as to how long this experiment took them to complete because it also helps give me a

timeline as to how long mine could possibly take. I honestly cant tell whether there is a bias in

this article. It seems like a pretty good scientific research without any bias.

3. http://sensing.konicaminolta.us/2013/01/how-color-affects-your-perception-of-

food/

Sensing, Konica Minolta. How Color Affects Your Perception of Food. Konica Minolta Color,

Light, and Display Measuring Instruments. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2016

The purpose of this article was to give a brief description as to how the color of food tricks your

perception of taste. It starts off with talking about the way you eat with your eyes and then

moves on to how they add food coloring into foods to give them more of a certain taste. I would

say the ideal audience for this article might not be someone who wants intense research but more

someone who just wants a quick answer to their question. I would say this isnt any more or less

relevant than the previous sources because it basically summarizes what they previously said.

There really arent any special features in this. This is a pretty basic article without any real

sources listed as to where they got their facts. I would say, if you are looking to do intensive

research like I am, this wouldnt be the article for you. This article was a good starting point but I

dont think it should be used as a full source for all your facts.
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4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al2addgXpus

The Great Courses. How Color Affects Taste. Online Video Clip. Youtube. Youtube, October 7,

2014. Web. 21 September 2016.

The main purpose of this video is to show in a very short amount of time how an experiment

proved that we taste with our eyes long before we taste with our mouths. They start off with a

4 bowls of clear, flavorless, gelatin,then add 4 different colors to the bowls, one for each, and

then start to talk about the experiment of people taste testing and seeing what flavors they picked

up. I would say the possible audience is someone who is looking for a very informative, but

quick answer to a bigger question. I feel the relevance of this information isnt any less or more

than the previous sources to this. I feel though that even though this is a quick resource, it gives

me a more credible source then the konica minolta source even though it was also a quick

response. I feel this isnt really a bias but more of just a self promotion for the person in the

video who I believe is the author of the book mentioned in the end of the video. I wouldnt say

that hinders this resource in any way, but more provides more research about the subject if you

have the money to pay for it.