The Sensory System: Sight and Taste

    The sensory system is a part of the nervous system that processes sensory information in the brain. The sensory information that I will be focusing on in this discussion are sight and taste. In the article "The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress", Adam Rogers discusses the iconic dress that is either seen as blue and black or gold and white. There was a huge controversy across the United States about what color this dress was. Everyone was arguing and choosing sides rather than looking at why different people are seeing different colors. 

    The reason as to why people see different colors in the same dress is due to people's visual perception. Overtime people's visual perception has evolved and changed to see in daylight. Our visual system is able to evolve because we, as humans have neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is our brains way of adapting and changing. Our nervous system has the ability to change structure in response to different stimuli. New neural connections are made throughout the lifespan which allows for our brains to change. This is why our visual perception can change over time. Due to the change in our visual perception, our visual system sees the dress and tries to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis. So for people who see white in gold, they are discounting the blue side and for people who see blue and black, they are discounting the gold side. Not everyones brain sees and processes things the same way. Each of our brains is unique due to neuroplasticity. 

    Nicole Garneau gave a ted talk questioning if there are more than five basic tastes titled "On the Trail of the Sixth Taste". This ted talk was in regards to the sensory information received by taste. In Garneau's ted talk, discusses how our brains make quick decisions based on our senses. For example, in regards to what we eat, our brains can use our senses to tell us if something is good to eat or bad to eat. If something looks moldy, our brains tells us not to eat it. If something smells bad, our brain tells us not to eat it. If something taste very bitter, our brain naturally associates it with poison and tells us to spit it out. Overtime, our brains disassociate the taste of bitter with poison and we can grow to like the taste of bitter. This is a prime example of neuroplasticity. Our brain adapts and changes its opinion on the bitter taste. When we learn that bitter is not always poison, new connections between nerves in the brain are made and changes the way we think about the taste of something bitter. Bitter is one of the five main tastes. 

    Garneau also talks about the other four tastes, those being salt, sweet, sour, and umami (savory). When looking at the taste of salt, our body knows that it needs salt to maintain fluid levels. When we start to crave salt, our body is trying to tell us that we need more salt in our system. When we have too much salt, our body does not crave salt as much and it does not taste as good when we consume it. Since our tastes adapt and change over time, Garneau believes that there is a sixth taste, that being fat. Her team and her are trying to prove that fat is the sixth taste by looking at dna sequencing and trying to figure out if there is a gene for fat being a taste. Neuroplasticity could be a basis of her research used to prove that our sensory system, can change and adapt, as our brain can. 

Rogers, A. (2015, February 27). The science of why no one agrees on the color of this dress. Wired. Retrieved May 2, 2023, from https://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/ 

Ted talk: Nicole Garneau "On the Trail of the Sixth Taste" retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhM-ZPZO8JQ