Paradoxical adaptation to taste mixtures.
Quinine, sucrose, quinine-sucrose mixtures, and water were employed both as preadapting rinses and as stimuli in a factorial experiment. Human subjects judged the perceived taste intensity of the 16 stimulus-rinse pairs, which were flowed over the dorsal anterior tongue surface. Previously documented effects of adaptation, mixture suppression, and release from suppression were observed. Following adaptation to quinine-sucrose mixtures, presentation of equimolar unmixed quinine or equimolar unmixed sucrose resulted in a reliable residual bitter or sweet taste, respectively, which was significantly greater than the taste following self-adaptation of the unmixed solutions. The residual taste following mixture adaptation suggests a peripheral mechanism underlying suppression between bitter and sweet tastes in a mixture.
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011803:Quinine; D013395:Sucrose; D013649:Taste; D013652:Taste Threshold
D013395:Sucrose; D011803:Quinine