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Chemical Senses

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Chemical Senses
Robert J. Bernal June 6, 2016
Robert Levitt, Instructor
University of Phoenix

Intro

The senses of smell and taste are chemically based senses that are unique to the other senses in the way in which the brain interprets them. Unlike other senses which are perceived and categorized analytically, taste and smell both pass through the emotional response center of the brain on the way to their being stored as memories, evoking an emotional association to their formation as engrams. Consider the unlikely association between taste and smell and the emotional response that they can trigger; a chemical reaction that gives off a gaseous “odor”, completely quantifiable by scientific standards, can trigger a purely emotional, unquantifiable response. The question then becomes, how do smell and taste play on our emotions?

How do Smell and Taste Effect Each Other?

The senses of smell and taste are integrally linked, the ability to do one without the other is not possible with the way that the brain is wired. Physiologically speaking, the way that humans are “designed” or the way that we have evolved is that the nose and the mouth are located in proximity to each other. This means that as we taste a food we are also inhaling particles that create the aromas that are generated by that food, and the brain’s interpretation of the stimulus from the taste buds along with the olfactory sensors in the nose is simultaneous; the memory engrams that form based on the association are also closely associated. Consider, the smell of a lemon-pine cleaner as the brain interprets the scent; what would come to mind? Perhaps the smell would trigger a memory of your grandmother’s lemon merengue pie and how it tastes; as we know, however, the two would taste nothing alike but that doesn’t stop the brain from remembering the taste of the pie as the memory is

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