OPPSYCLARK

Day 33

Learning Targets:

Students will be able to describe the structure and function of the 5 basic senses and how these processes influence human behavior.
Students will be able to understand the impact of perception on the influence of behavior.

Opener: What is on the tip of your tongue? Have you ever disagreed with someone about how something tastes?

Activity #1: Mini - Lecture

Our ability to taste begins at the taste receptors on the tongue.

The tongue detects six different taste sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, piquancy (spicy), and umami (savory).

Our tongues are covered with taste buds, which are designed to sense chemicals in the mouth.

Most taste buds are located in the top outer edges of the tongue, but there are also receptors at the back of the tongue as well as on the walls of the mouth and at the back of the throat.

Human tongues are covered with 2,000 to 10,000 taste buds, and each bud contains between 50 and 100 taste receptor cells.

Taste buds are activated very quickly; a salty or sweet taste that touches a taste bud for even one-tenth of a second will trigger a neural impulse

On average, taste buds live for about five days, after which new taste buds are created to replace them.

As we get older, however, the rate of creation decreases, making us less sensitive to taste.

The area of the sensory cortex that responds to taste is in a very similar location to the area that responds to smell

Activity #2: Provide a hypothesis for each of the following questions below regarding taste as one of the 5 senses. Remember that this should be a claim that can be measured through experimentation and quantifiable data.