I have an experiment that I want a scientist to perform for me.

The test is to see if seeing food before eating it is a crucial part to tasting it.

My hypothesis is that seeing your food and having your brain know what it is so it can imagine what it tastes like before you actually taste it, helps make things taste stronger.

I was thinking about this because yesterday I was eating starbursts in the dark and it was harder than normal to find out what flavor I had when I was eating them. This made me remember a time when I was eating jelly beans with out finding out the flavor of them and actually liking them more than when I did know the flavor.

So I want this to be studied because I think it would be really cool to find out if I'm right or not.

So does anyone know how I can contact a scientist about this?

/SPELLCHECK

I'm a scientist, but.... I only deal with rocks and things.

I mean, sometimes licking a rock can be crucial to determine the mineralogy when you're out in the middle of nowhere or feeling adventurous (Halite? Gypsum? Sylvite?) but I don't know anything about starbursts.

How about going to a library first? Not your public town library, but a university library? Most of them hand out visitor passes.

Once you've stood in front the mile-long row of books on experiments about seeing food before tasting it, you might want to refrain from asking a scientist in person. You could instead check out a few of the other departments' mile-long rows of books on more or less related topics.

So you have a hypothesis--get some people together and test it. Have them taste some items blindfolded, write down what they think of it, then later, taste the same items, but without the blindfold. Reverse the order. Repeat. Have one control group that tastes twice, no blind fold, one that tastes twice, both blindfolded.

Sounds like a good science fair project to me.

I live pretty close to Ursinus college which you probably havn't heard of, but its a pretty decent science and math school. I didn't think about checking their library. In fact I had to look on Wikipedia to remember what a library was (joking of course)

Don't think it'll be easy, though, if you really wanna find out. University libraries (and the books in there) are known to be hopelessly unintellegible.

Maybe you should redefine the goal of your mission:

How to contact a librarian.

Of course contacting a librarian may become another experiment, possibly with a pleasing outcome, especially if she's good-looking, unless she just wants you to be quiet all the time.

But seriously, just asking your question like you did, you've taken the first step to become a scientist yourself.

You really love to see the disappointed look on their faces once they see the real science, right?

(Exception: Geology, of course - that rocks! Mwahahaha!)

Cheeseburgers...

Yes, well, I guess (and certainly geology) is a bit of an acquired taste. I know that I get excited when I see (for instance) ripple marks in rocks that are hundreds or thousands of millions of years old, indicating that those sediments were deposited in a shallow sea or lake. I can even determine the wind direction at the time of deposition, etc.

But when I point out such exciting features in rocks to my sons, they just look at me strangely. Over the years they have just learned to say: "Yes, Dad, it's interesting" before moving on.

If the library is too far, there's always Google.

I searched for "vision taste" and found this PDF as the second result.

Gail McHugh - Scientist.

The other option is to stump up the funds for a research grant.

If you're willing to pay, scientists will research pretty much anything for you. It's their job.

If you're willing to pay a little bit more you can tell them what the results will be as well.

I'm a studying psychologist at University, I'd be happy to try this experiment for you next year when I have free rein to choose my projects. As a student I also have access to EEG machines and the like which would allow me to give you more in depth information about the cognitive functioning that goes on during the process. :)

I did this as an experiment for a science fair in elementary school.

Very simple, here's what I did:

I bought some "Country Time Lemonade" powder. Mixed them up in three batches, in clear plastic bottles.

Then in one, I added some green food coloring, and turned it bright green. Then I took another, and added some green, and red, and blue... and made a brownish-green murky mess.

I brought it into class, and gave everyone a survey, asking which looked the best. Then made them all taste it, and rate which tasted the best.

Of course the results were: yellow as the best, followed by green, followed by the brown mess.

An easy experiment that does show, visual "taste" is important.