The pervasive core idea in taste is inadequate and misleading

Abstract

AbstractThe target article described the ubiquitous and often undefined idea of “basic tastes” as the basis for sensory coding in taste, and its attendant problems. The commentaries cover the full range of reaction to this argument, from full support, to qualification of the level of analysis to which “basic tastes” apply and the nature of empirical support, to full denial of either the characterization of the literature or that such characterization reveals any problem. Many commentators, and I, go on to propose other types and sources for taste analysis, which I relate to the “across-fiber pattern model.”