Judgments Of Taste Research Articles

Book Review: Clement of Alexandria & the Judgement of Taste

Book Review: Clement of Alexandria & the Judgement of Taste

Gustatory cortex neurons perform reliability-dependent integration of multisensory flavor inputs.

Flavor is the quintessential multisensory experience, combining gustatory, retronasal olfactory, and texture qualities to inform food perception and consumption behavior. However, the computations that govern multisensory integration of flavor components and their underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we use rats as a model system to test the hypothesis that taste and smell components of flavor are integrated in a reliability-dependent manner to inform hedonic judgments and that this computation is performed by neurons in the primary taste cortex. Using a series of two-bottle preference tests, we demonstrate that hedonic judgments of taste+ smell mixtures are a weighted average of the component judgments, and that the weight of the components depends on their relative reliability. Using extracellular recordings of single-neuron spiking and local field potential activity in combination with decoding analysis, we reveal a correlate of this computation in gustatory cortex (GC). GC neurons weigh bimodal taste and smell inputs based on their reliability, with more reliable inputs contributing more strongly to taste+ smell mixture responses. Input reliability was associated with less variable responses and stronger network-level synchronization in the gamma band. Together, our findings establish a quantitative framework for understanding hedonic multisensory flavor judgments and identify the neural computations that underlie them.

Gourmet Burgers and Classifications of Highbrow–Lowbrow Hybrids: Middle-Class Consumers’ Perspectives on McDonald’s Burgers Designed by Michelin Chefs

Boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow products and practices of consumption are blurring, notably in food consumption. In this article, we want to understand how consumers experience and make sense of products that are seen as uniting highbrow and lowbrow by authoritative voices in the field. We focus on gourmet burgers and more specifically the case of McDonald’s collaboration with Michelin chefs in Denmark and the attitudes of middle-class consumers towards this collaboration and its products. Empirically, we demonstrate that consumers, in theory, are very favourable towards food products that transgress the highbrow–lowbrow distinction. At the same time, understandings and evaluations vary. The majority of consumers are favourable, while a minority are strongly negative. These perceptions are strongly shaped by consumers’ initial perception of the collaboration. The favourable informants see it as a fun experiment while those who are critical see it as a fake branding strategy. Via a comparison to another gourmet burger, the NOMA cheeseburger, served at one of the world’s best restaurants, we further suggest distinguishing between highbrow and lowbrow transgression of the highbrow–lowbrow divide. We argue that while both seem legitimate for consumers, it seems that highbrow transgressions confer more status to the consumer. However, in both cases, there is a risk that consumers are disappointed and experience a mismatch between expectations and the tangible product. Finally, we posit that consuming lowbrow–highbrow hybrids differs from what has been labelled ironic consumption, for example, lowbrow products consumed by highbrow consumers in an ironic manner, because highbrow–lowbrow hybrids connect objects and actors from antithetical spheres in the object of consumption. We argue that the focus on highbrow–lowbrow hybrids offers a new lens to study fields of cultural consumption and how consumers subjectively make sense of fields and their dynamics and position themselves via sense-making narratives and taste judgements.

How can health look tasty? Effects of packaging color saturation on beverage health and taste expectations depend on color match

PurposeIt is of significant interest to marketers to identify visual product cues that signal high tastiness and healthiness, as both characteristics are of substantial importance to consumers. One such cue is the saturation of the packaging color. However, past studies found diverging effects of packaging color saturation on consumer tastiness and healthiness judgments. In this study, we investigated a possible moderator of the saturation effect: the match between the primary packaging color and the color of the main product ingredient.Design/methodology/approachIn two online studies, participants viewed pictures of fruit juices (Study 1) and hydration drinks (Study 2). For each product, participants rated the expected taste and healthiness. We manipulated the color saturation and color match of the product pictures.FindingsWhen the packaging color matched the main ingredient (e.g. orange juice in an orange package), consumers expected products in normal versus low saturated packages to be healthier and tastier. When the packaging color did not match the color of the main ingredient (e.g. orange juice in a red package), the positive effects of saturation on health and taste were reduced or even disappeared.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that managers can optimize product health and taste perceptions by using moderately saturated packaging colors, particularly when the packaging color aligns with the main ingredient’s color.Originality/valueOur research offers a possible explanation for diverging effects of color saturation on product judgments. We show that whether and to what extend color saturation affects health and taste judgments might depend on the match between the packaging and ingredient color.

Towards an Affective Understanding of Pure Judgments of Taste

In this article, we argue that “affect” should be an important notion in political philosophy. We do this, firstly, by tracing the notion of affect through the philosophical system of Immanuel Kant. We find that affect plays a threefold role for Kant, which can be mapped onto Hannah Arendt’s distinction between natural humanity, moral humanity, and political/aesthetic humanity (our rephrasing). Affect clearly plays a role on the level of natural humanity, and it is arguably to be pinpointed from within moral humanity. With regard to political/aesthetic humanity, we argue that in order to understand how pure judgments of taste can vouch for the ‘bridging’ of the gap between natural and moral humanity, an understanding of the role of aesthetic affection is essential. Secondly, we broaden the Kantian scope of affect by discussing how Žižek, in Lacan’s wake, has tried (but failed) to systematically examine the political relevance of pure judgments of taste. To understand how humans are able to come together politically, we need a better understanding of affect as that which allows pure form to effectuate a subjectively but universally shareable proclivity for (dis)pleasure and desire.

The Aesthetics of The Funereal in Greek Tragedy and Medieval Dances: An Antecedent of The Sinister

The relationship between aesthetics and death has been as frequent as it has been complex. On the one hand, it is inevitable to account for all the representations of death linked to a previous theological scheme, of which art itself would be a reflection. Here we would have everything related to the care of death, concretised in the sepulchral sculptures that remind human beings of an ultraterrestrial destiny. In this sense, we have from the pyramids of Egypt to the stately pantheons of Pere Lecheise. On the other hand, nineteenth-century sturm and drung came to conceive of death as an incentive to life and an entity with a life of its own that is addressed precisely to the living, so that art came to show us a living figure, sometimes of great beauty, sometimes with a markedly macabre aesthetic that would come, in any case, to provoke reflection in the subject. From the macabre we would move on to the sinister understood as a Kantian judgement of taste. A judgement of taste on the sinister, a category understood as a bridge between the sublime and the macabre, from which a whole set of possibilities can be inferred: necromancy, necroeroticism. It is the possibility of eschatology to generate aesthetic pleasure for the contemplator. Death as an object of aesthetic contemplation.

“It all depends on the market”: Taste as an economic fact

AbstractHow are taste judgments made and shared? Drawing on fieldwork among Ceylon tea brokers and buyers, the industry's de facto tea tasters, this article offers an ethnographic account of aesthetic judgment in practice. I ask, what makes a tea good? Tea tasters' unanimous response amounted to a market relativism of sorts that shifted attention away from the tasted object: “It all depends on the market.” Following my informants' contention, I show how industry actors are able to enact a tentative resolution to the fundamental paradox inherent in the judgment of taste, namely, its ostensibly subjective nature and simultaneous claim to objectivity. “The market,” invoked time and again by tea tasters, and imagined as inherently objective, affords the seamless translation of taste judgments into prices, intelligible and shareable quantities, prompting a reimagining of taste as an economic fact.

Interpretation and Truth in Kant’s Theory of Beauty

Abstract This essay argues that the interpretations we develop through the activity of reflection have a share of the truth. I argue this, first, by outlining the relationship of concepts to intuitions in Kant’s theory of cognition, which presents the measure for truth in his philosophy. I turn, second, to explicate in detail the relation of the faculties in Kant’s descriptions of the free play between the imagination and the understanding in judgments of taste. Here, we find that concepts relate to what appears in a partial but also multiple way, leading to a conclusion that our reflective judgments share in the truth. This is important, I note, for the need we have to inhabit a shared world where we can communicate with each other about the way that things are, even about things that are not objects of ‘knowledge’ proper.

Art museum visitors: how do they perform class distinction?

ABSTRACT Previous studies predominantly used sociodemographic factors to categorize art museum visitors, overlooking an in-depth exploration of the motivations guiding their museum experiences and relying heavily on aggregated data. Building upon Bourdieu’s (1984, Distinction: A Social Critique to the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press) theory of cultural consumption and Peterson’s (2005a. “Problems in comparative research: The example of omnivorousness.” Poetics 33:257–282. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2005.10.002; 2005b. “Changing Arts Audiences: Capitalizing on Omnivorousness.” https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/peterson1005.pdf) omnivore/univore theory, this study aims to investigate the distinct segments of art museum visitors, considering their experience expectations and cultural preferences. Specifically, utilizing two-step cluster analysis, we explore the experiences sought by art museum visitors, considering their cultural preferences. Analyzing 411 questionnaires from visitors to Lyon’s premier fine arts museum, two distinct visitor groups emerge. Thus, the findings suggest that conventionally labeled ‘museum-goers’ represent diverse visitor types, emphasizing the holistic importance of considering a combination of factors. The results affirm Peterson's theory adding to the literature that these groups exhibit distinct cultural and culinary preferences, aligning with Bourdieu's social distinction theory. The study offers both theoretical and practical implications.

The Communicability of Pleasure and the Pleasure of Communication: the ‘Obligation’ of Aesthetic Feeling in the Critique of the Power of Judgment

Kant makes a puzzling claim in the Critique of the Power of Judgment concerning the connection between the feeling of pleasure occasioned by the appreciation of an object as beautiful and the universal communicability of this aesthetic feeling: on the one hand, he claims that this feeling is due to the free play of the faculties of imagination and understanding, and on the other hand, that it has its ground in the very communicability of this pleasure. The central argument of the present study is that it is possible to clarify the relation between the feeling of pleasure occasioned by the reflective judging of an object and the universal communicability Kant attributes to such a judging by grasping the demand for a ‘universality without concept’ claimed by a pure judgment of taste in terms of what appears to be a problematic relationship of grounding between the shareability of pure aesthetic feeling and the reflective activity of the mind. I will claim that this relationship can be rendered clearer by an explication of the ‘share’ of disinterestedness, purposiveness, and subjective universal validity claims in pure judgments of taste and brought together in the notion of a common sense (sensus communis). What thereby comes into view is an original orientation in the world that is presupposed by explicitly theoretical and practical judgments.

The Judgment of Taste and the Formalism Undertaking in the Arts

One of the main reflective activities that have fascinated every human, since pre-Historic times, is about the production and evaluation-critique of a work of art. Art is almost as old as man. It is a form of work, and this work is an activity peculiar to mankind. Man takes possession of the natural elements by transforming it. Man, also dreams working his magic upon nature of being able to transform objects and give them newform by magical means this is the production of what works means in reality, where man is, from the outset a magician. Few questions need to be established to proceed: What are the procedures to follow to analyze a work of art, what inductive processes has to take into consideration and how to establish a detachment between the work of art and the judgement of it or how to evaluate this subjective experience? This paper present two main areas for discussion; first, it establishes definitions of terms and concepts related to “Significant Form”, “Form”, “Formalism”, and “Aesthetics”; and second, the evaluation of the ‘Significant Form’ in a work of art by using Feldman methos; reaching a conclusion based on the evidence of three work of art presented.

Judgments of taste as strategic moves in a coordination game

ABSTRACT Recent work on evaluative discourse and judgements of personal taste in particular has focused on active interpersonal disagreements. I explore the communicative import of judgements of taste: why we issue them, why we sometimes get involved in disputes about taste, and what acceptance or rejection of such judgements consists of. The view developed here – that the core use of such judgements lies in seeking to align our attitudes in view of a shared project – makes it plausible that the use of a sentence of the form ‘a is F’ (where F is a predicate of taste) semantically expresses the simple, semantically articulated proposition that a is F, is subject to an unrelativized truth predicate and not enriched by personal standards or perspectives. Our model shows that personal standards or perspectives are, contrary to a widely shared assumption in the debate, not the entities or objects that require coordination. What is shared among interlocutors are projects that require the coordination of the participant’s strategic choices. The semantically articulated proposition functions as a focal point, proposed by the speaker, for coordinating their choices.

Autonomy and Community in Kant’s Theory of Taste

Abstract In this paper, I argue that Kant has a far more communitarian theory of aesthetic life than is usually acknowledged. I focus on two aspects of Kant’s theory that might otherwise be taken to support an individualist reading, namely, Kant’s emphasis on aesthetic autonomy and his characterization of judgments of taste as involving demands for agreement. I argue that the full expression of autonomy in fact requires being a member of an aesthetic community and that within such a community, judgments of taste are issued as invitations to others to engage their faculties towards the goal of shared aesthetic appreciation.

The relationship between Satisfaction and Interest related to the Aesthetic Judgment in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment

This article aims to present a reading of the first paragraphs of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment and the conceptualization about the beauty, pleasurable and good, and the relation there is between satisfaction and interest in the judgment of taste. Its motivation is due to the philosophical relevance that both the author and the topic represent in the framework of the philosophical renewal of his time and nowadays. With this central intention, this work seeks to disclose, in an explanatory way, all logical chains of the proposed Kantian thinking, to facilitate its understanding. The content was exposed based on a hermeneutic analysis of the book Critique of the Power of Judgment. As a result of the research, an excellent logical link was observed in the author's argument, defending the thinking about the judgment of taste and an expert work of conceptualization regarding beauty, pleasant and good. This research concludes by revealing that many of the aesthetic relations presented can be associated to both the faculty of thinking and the feeling developed between object and subject; thus, making it possible the advance of the research to a more comprehensive topic.

Hipster Hospitality: Blurred Boundaries in Restaurants

The restaurant industry is currently experiencing a shift in taste judgements. Practices and discourses on taste are communicated and expressed in contexts where food enthusiasts meet, resulting in a complex debate about the production and consumption of “good and bad” taste. This study aims to explore the intricate dynamics that shape the performances of dining room professionals in contemporary restaurants. Based on autoethnographic fieldwork at two restaurants in Sweden, this study uses cultural taste and dramaturgical theory to understand the social processes in restaurant culture. The results demonstrate how dining room work is organized within an unstructured environment through organic service, aesthetical framing, and self-representation. Based on these findings, the article argues that the interplay between the restaurant’s ambiance and the self holds value in shaping specific hipster hospitality. For instance, this is achieved through the blurred line between frontstage and backstage. This study contributes to the understanding of the changing role of work in contemporary restaurant culture, in which a less pronounced distinction between private and public, and between formal and informal service are some of the elements.

Fashion and the individuality of mass consumption

Industrially produced mass culture has the reputation of being uniform and monotonous, leaving hardly any room for originality and creativity. In stark contrast to this concept, other theorists of popular culture emphasise the increasing individuality of mass culture made possible by the increasing opulence and leisure time of the working masses followed by the marketing of consumer goods and services. Using the American automotive markets and the Soviet fashion industry as examples, the article addresses the role of fashion in promoting individuality in modern consumer culture questioning both Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s analysis of culture industry and Bourdieu’s analysis of the ‘down-to-earth’ taste of the working class. Critical Theory was right in referring to the culture industry, fashion included, as promoting pseudo-individuation, but not right in downplaying the role of the individual judgement of taste. Bourdieu was right in arguing that the social groups with little cultural and economic capital have hardly any role in challenging the legitimate taste, but not right in arguing that their taste is not an aesthetic taste at all. In analysing the relation between the individual and the social, or the particular and the general, in modern culture, one should pay more attention to the social formation of fashion, operative in consumer goods markets. The reconciliation between the individual and the social that fashion offers is real enough but takes place only provisionally and in a socially conforming manner challenging neither the social formation of fashion nor the general social order of the capitalist, commercial society.

Kant on Free Speech: Criticism, Enlightenment, and the Exercise of Judgement in the Public Sphere

Abstract In this article, I offer a novel and in-depth account of how, for Kant, free speech is the mechanism that moves a society closer to justice. I argue that the criticism of the legislator preserved by free speech must also be the result of collective agreement. I further argue that structural features of judgements of taste and the sensus communis give guidance for how we should communicate publicly to succeed at the aims Kant has laid out, as judgements of taste, like politics, belong fundamentally to a transitional sphere between nature and freedom.

Living Freedom: The Heautonomy of the Judgement of Taste

Abstract Different from the autonomy of understanding in cognition and the autonomy of practical reason in praxis, the heautonomy in the judgement of taste is reflexive. The reflexivity consists not only in the fact that the power of judgement legislates to its own usage but also, and more importantly, it legislates to itself through its own operative process. This normativity, based on the self-referential structure of pure aesthetic judgement and the a priori principle of subjective, internal purposiveness, can be regarded as a self-discovering and self-flourishing principle that organically grows out of the aesthetic experience and, at the same time, regulates its growth in return. In this scenario, aesthetic freedom can be identified as a third kind of freedom different from Kant’s transcendental freedom and practical freedom – a flexible and living freedom with spontaneous legislation, but not bound by any determinate laws.

Ethical Subjectivism: A Lost Cause

Individual relativism, also known as ethical subjectivism, is an attractive theory about morality. It argues that morality is a matter relative to the individual in a way akin to personal taste. For example, subjectivists regard the ethical judgment ‘Stealing is wrong’ as comparable with the judgment of taste ‘I dislike Brussels sprouts’. Yet, subjectivism is not nihilism. While nihilism denies the existence of moral value, duties, principles and truths, subjectivism claims that they exist, but they are subjective like taste. In this paper, I argue that ethical subjectivism ought to be rejected as it is an incoherent, undefendable, and a pernicious position.

Streiten über Geschmack

Abstract The aim of this article is to refute the aphorism “There is no arguing about taste”. On the one hand, judgements of taste arise from individual feelings, on the other hand, they claim to be universally valid. The question of whether there can be sensible dispute about taste arises from this conflict between subjectivity and universality. The article shows how sensible dispute is possible without denying the subjective character of the judgement. Dispute leads to an explication of the standard that determined the individual judgement of taste. Based on this, three stages of sensible dispute open up: adjustment of the standard, improvement of the standard, and idealisation of the standard. Thus, the article demonstrates not only that it is possible to argue about taste in a sensible way, but also on which levels such a dispute can take place.