Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2008 - Volume 31, Issue 01  

Open Peer Commentary

Basic tastes as cognitive concepts and taste coding as more than spatial

Patricia M. Di Lorenzoa1 and Jen-Yung Chena1

a1 Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. diloren@binghamton.edu enchen@binghamton.edu http://psychology.binghamton.edu/People/index.html

Abstract

Erickson's treatise intertwines and confuses two major, but separable, issues: whether there are basic tastes and how taste stimuli are encoded. The idea of basic tastes may reflect a natural process of concept formation. By only discussing two spatial coding schemes for taste, Erickson ignores the temporal dimension of taste responses and the contribution of neuronal cooperativity.

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