Feelings on the Tip of the Tongue:

Taste, Emotion, and the Organization of Behavior

Trivia Tidbits

• “I am a(n) ___________________”• Top three terms of endearment• Causes of anorexia

Objectives

• Share my research interests

• “Pitch” topical integration

• Evolution: Eating as an adaptive problem

• Emotion: Taste as marker

• Behavior: Taste as systems organizer

Overview

• Eating in context: Global implications

• Eat• Eat good stuff• Don’t eat bad stuff

Evolution says…

• Mouth as gate, taste as gatekeeper

• The omnivore’s dilemma

Elaborations of TasteDarwin (1972/1965): “The laughter of the gods is described by Homer as ‘the exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily banquet’ … Disgust is a sensation rather more distinct in its nature, and refers to something revolting, primarily in relation to the sense of taste… and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling” (p. 196).

Paul Rozin (1996)

“Towards a psychology of food and eating: From motivation to module to model to marker, morality, meaning, and metaphor”

Trivia Tidbit Time

• Terms of endearment related to eating?

Taste & Metaphor

• That was so sweet of you!• Chris has a saccharine personality.• The incident left a bad taste in my mouth.• Pat was a bitter person.

Taste as Emotion Marker

Does taste predict emotionality?

Dess & Edelheit (1998)

• Mild stress vs. control• Rate saccharin and tone• Temperament measures

Meet Your Genes

• Touch paper briefly to tip of tongue. Any taste?

• If not, put paper on the tongue for several seconds. Any taste?

• Supertasters, tasters, non-tasters

“Taster” Status Predicts:

Less:• Sweet, fat preference• Vegetable intake• Dental caries• Body fat• Smoking• Alcohol drinking • Family alcoholism• Cardiovascular disease

More:• Intense

sweetness• Apprehensivene

ss• Depression

Curiouser and Curiouser…

• 25 genes for bitter receptors• expression depends on experience

We are not alone:Occidental Low- and High-Saccharin Consuming Rats

LoS rat

HiS rat

Preference for Alcohol-Paired Flavors

Dess, O’Neill, & Chapman (2006)

Cocaine Self-Administration

Carroll, Morgan, Lynch, Campbell, & Dess (2002)TRAINING DAYS

LoS rats

HiS rats

Back to the original question:

-- Do LoS and HiS differ in emotionality?

BOO!!! Acoustic Startle, or “Jumpiness”

Dess et al. (2000)

Taste as Systems Organizer

• Spatiotemporal organization

• Social organization

Eating on the Run

• Deprivation-induced hyperactivity

• Activity anorexia

Diet 1 Diet 2 Diet 3

Scarce food

Trivia Tidbit Time

• Causes of anorexia

Meal PatterningN

igh

ttim

e M

eals

HiS

LoS

LoS rats initiate more meals at night

“It seems to me that our three most basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love.”

- M. F. K. Fisher, noted food writer, 1990, p. 353

Trivia Tidbit Time•“I am a(n) ______________”

Sugar in Your Coffee?

I do not know if coffee and sugar are essential to the happiness of Europe, but I know well that these two products have accounted

for the unhappiness of two great regions of the world:

America has been depopulated so as to have

land on which to plant them; Africa has been

depopulated so as to have the people to cultivate

them.

-- Bernadin de Saint Pierre (1773)

Bitter Enemies: Can We Sweeten the Deal?

SHARING PEACE BY BREAKING BREAD

Today is Sept. 11. It is a day when many of us may relive the horror and fear that descended upon this country a year ago, reflect on the changes that the attacks have brought and hope that all of this can end soon.

Tonight, three different faith communities -- Milledge Avenue Baptist Church, Congregation Children of Israel and Al-Huda Islamic Center -- will gather together in the spirit of unity, honoring the past and their building friendships with the great equalizer: food.

Teaching Eating• Everyone eats• Accessible, visceral• Complicates “simple to complex”• It takes a village

Student Colleagues

• Kimberly Black• Steve Chang• Natassa Damaskou• Heather Furner• Carrie Liston• Natalya Lvoff• Liz Pelayo• Joy Sebe• Jill Arnal• Jocelyn Richard• Stephanie Freidburg-Strauss• Courtney Kennel

• Evan Stiles• Elena Busto• Vincent Chen• Rita Molestina• Larissa Gibson• Mitzi Gonzales• Cheryl Prigodich• Cameryn Garrett• Jenny Alonzo• Patricia O’Neill• Alison Williams• Sara Hahn

Faculty Colleagues

• Dale Chapman• Dennis VanderWeele• Roberta Pollock• Tom Minor, UCLA• Mike Fanselow, UCLA• Ken Green, CSULB• Stephen Kiefer, KSU• Marilyn Carroll, U Minnesota

And…Thanks to the terrific APA staffand to YOU for your important work in schools and for this opportunity to share!