Phenomenon and Graphing

Virtual Tasting - Kesler Science Weekly Phenomenon and Graph

Written by Chris Kesler | Jul 17, 2025 9:00:00 PM

When I was a kid getting the mail at my house in the 80's, I could always tell when some of my mom's magazines were in the mailbox. They had a distinct smell created by little paper perfume samples tucked inside their pages. Advertisers used these to create a virtual sensory experience for readers - you might be hundreds of miles from the nearest perfume bottle, but you could look at pictures AND smell the fragrance. It made an impression - decades later, I can still remember those smells!

Over the years, we've gotten better at transmitting sights and sounds, and with haptic technology, we can even deliver a few vibrations through our phones and video game controllers. The two toughest senses to experience at a distance are smell and taste, but researchers are experimenting with ways to "send" tastes - and they're getting some decent results!

The newest remote tasting technology is pretty remarkable. At one location, scientists break down and analyze the flavor components of a material. They send those measurements through the internet to a device that sits in the mouth of the person doing the test. The device has packets of chemicals like glucose and citric acid inside. When the device receives the flavor analysis, it pushes different combinations of chemicals through a gel layer to the right spot on the tongue. This creates sweet, sour, or salty flavors that should match the analysis. 

How well does it work? Honestly, there is a long way to go. Researchers found most participants were able to detect the difference between the recreated flavor of cake versus fish soup - but about 30% couldn't tell them apart, which means at least one of them must taste pretty weird! 😂

Truly replicating a food experience is a long way off - the device cannot deliver spicy flavors, and a lot of our sense of taste is affected by the texture, aroma, and fat content of food. Our ability to perceive flavors changes over time, too, so two people at different ages might not experience the same flavors in the same way. Take a look at this graph showing how a test subject's ability to taste salty flavors changes with age:

If I brought this graph to my students, here are some questions I'd ask them:

💡What is the dependent variable for this graph? 

💡Which age group notices the salty taste first? Which age group tastes the salt most intensely later in the test?  

💡At what time on the graph do both the older and younger groups taste the salt flavor with the same intensity?

There is a free student worksheet--with answers--available for this graph!

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