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Taste and Smell. SMELL. Smell: to perceive the odor or scent of something through the nose by means of the olfactory nerves. The sense of smell. Smell can determine which foods you eat. Memories or feelings can be responses to something you smell. The sense of smell.
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SMELL • Smell: to perceive the odor or scent of something through the nose by means of the olfactory nerves.
The sense of smell • Smell can determine which foods you eat. • Memories or feelings can be responses to something you smell.
The sense of smell • You smell food because it gives off molecules into the air. • These molecules stimulate sensitive nerve cells, called olfactory(ohl FAK tree)cells in your nasal passage.
How Do We Smell? • Olfactory cells are kept moist by mucus. • When molecules in the air dissolve in this moisture, the cells become stimulated.
How Do We Smell? • If enough molecules are present, a message starts in these cells, then travels to the brain where it is read. • If you have smelled this odor before, you will recognize it. If you don’t recognize it, it will be remembered and identified the next time you smell it.
TASTE • Taste:tounderstand or distinguish the flavor of something.
Tasting… • Taste buds on your tongue are the major sensory receptors for taste. • About 10,000 taste buds are found all over your tongue, enabling you to tell one taste from another. • When you think of hot pizza, your mouth may begin to water. This is helpful, because to taste something, it has to be dissolved in water.
How Do We Taste? • Saliva begins the taste process. • A solution of saliva and food washes over the taste buds, and messages are sent to the brain. • The brain reads these messages, and you identify the flavors.
How Do We Taste? • Most taste buds respond to several taste sensations. • However, some areas of the tongue are more sensitive to one flavor than another. • The four main taste sensations are: 1.sweet, 2. salty, 3.sour, • 4.bitter.
Smell and Taste… • Smell and taste are related. • The sense of smell is needed to identify some foods such as chocolate.
Smell and Taste… • When saliva in your mouth mixes with the chocolate, odors travel up the nasal passage in the back of your throat. • The olfactory cells are then stimulated, and the taste and smell of chocolate are sensed.
Smell and Taste… • When you have a stuffy nose and some foods seem tasteless, it may be because the food’s molecules are blocked from sending messages to the olfactory cells in your nasal passages.