Taste mixture interactions Suppression, additivity, and the predominance of sweetness

Most of what is known about taste interactions has come from studies of binary mixtures The primary goal of this study was to determine whether asymmetries in suppression between stimuli in binary mixtures predict the perception of tastes in more complex mixtures (e g ternary and quaternary mixtures) Also of interest was the longstanding question of whether overall taste intensity derives from the sum of the tastes perceived within a mixture (perceptual additivity) or from the sum of the perceived intensities of the individual stimuli (stimulus add:rimy) Using the general labeled magnitude scale together with a sip-and-spit procedure we asked subjects to rate overall taste intensity and the sweetness sourness saltiness and bitterness of approximately equi-intense sucrose NaCl citric acid and QSO(4) stimuli presented alone and in all possible binary ternary and quaternary mixtures The results showed a consistent pattern of mixture suppression in which sucrose sweetness tended to be both the least suppressed quality and the strongest suppressor of other tastes The overall intensity of mixtures was found to be predicted best by perceptual additivity A second experiment that was designed to rule out potentially confounding effects of the order of taste ratings and the temperature of taste solutions replicated the main findings of the first experiment Overall the results imply that mixture suppression favors perception of sweet carbohydrates in foods at the expense of other potentially harmful ingredients such as high levels of sodium (saltiness) and potential poisons or spoilage (bitterness and sourness) (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved