5 Differences between taste and smell

Chemosensory perception of food occurs in the mouth and nose. The integration of taste and aroma perceived by these organs together enable us to perceive flavor of a food. Think about strawberry candy. It probably has a red color, which gives you the expectation it will taste like strawberry, as perceived by visual cues. When tasting, it will give a sweet and sour taste, together with a strawberry aroma, this together gives a strawberry flavor. Without being able to smell the strawberry aroma, the candy would only give a sweet and sour taste. The same goes for lemon candy, without being able to smell the lemon aroma, the candy would only give a sweet and sour taste (probably sourer and less sweet compared to the strawberry candy).

As you ay have read in the previous chapters, sensory perception of taste and smell has different pathways. Smell is difficult to express, but there is a direct link with the brain, and there is a direct emotional meaning, often based on memory. Information of taste signals first goes to the brainstem and is further transported from there. Furthermore, an endless number of smells can be identified, against only five or possibly six basic tastes. The explanation for this is combinatorial coding of olfaction versus labelled line coding in taste, as is further explained in the image below.

Smell and taste can also interact, to give flavor to a food. Now you can think about different ingredients (chemical compounds) in food whether they give a flavor, taste, or aroma to the food, and how this information is transported to different brain areas. The differences and interactions between flavor, taste and aroma are further explained in the video.