Taste judgments and gustatory stimulus duration: simple taste reaction times

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Abstract
Human simple taste reaction times to aqueous solutions of organic and inorganic molecules flowing across 39.3 mm2 of the anterodorsal tongue were measured for stimulus durations of 50, 100, 300, 1000 and 2000 ms. Median reaction times were >400 msand 4, 3.2 mM HC1 and 214 mM monosodium glutamate. Pairwise comparisons showed significant differences between times to 50 or 100 ms versus 2000 ms stimuli for these five solutions, but only for Na-saccharin and HC1 between 50 and 100 ms stimuli. Longer reaction times generally accompanied briefer durations. Simple taste reaction times did not differ across 50 ms through 2000 ms durations for 500 mM NaCl, 10 mM HCl or 2 mM Na-saccharin in 10 mM citric acid. A relationship between effective taste stimulus concentration and sensitivity to stimulus duration is suggested. The length of taste reaction time, and the differences in reaction time between stimulus molecules, are attributed to central processing rather than receptor level events.