Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association.

I'm your host, Caitlin Luna.

Why does some people scarf down anchovies by the pound while others recoil at the thought

of a tuna fish sandwich?

Why do the textures of certain foods like mushrooms turn people

off? Not only is taste a biologically complex experience, it is quite psychological.

Our guest for this episode is psychologist Dr. Linda Bartashook, an international leader in

taste research, who is the Bushnell Professor of Food science and human nutrition at the University of Florida

and Director for the Psychophysical Research at the University's Center for Smell and Taste.

She's known for her discovery of supertasters, people who have more taste buzz than the average person,

her work on enhancing the flavor of tomatoes, and for discovering a condition known as Burning Mouth Syndrome.

Dr. Bartyshuk is joining us via Skype from the University of Florida. Welcome. Hi. So it may be surprising to people

that taste is as psychological as it is biological. Can you explain how taste is studied from a

psychological perspective? Well, taste is both biology and experience, and it's psychological

because of the learning that we do. We learn to like things. Some of our liking or disliking

is built into the brain, but most of it is learned. Does that explain why some people like very polarizing foods, like

vegamite, durians, those really stinky cheeses?

Is that genetic, cultural, or is it based on personal preference?

A lot of that is early experience.

They learn to like it very early.

Their culture promotes it.

They learned it from their parents. And what we learned to like it very early. Their culture promotes it. They learned it from their parents.

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