Identification of the components of taste mixtures by adults & children

Recently, it was reported that cognitive factors may have impeded the analysis of binary taste mixtures by 8- to 9-year-old children, resulting in them identifying only the strongest component in each mixture compared to adults who identified both components (Oram, Laing, Freeman, & Hutchinson, [2001]). The current study aimed to overcome this limitation by employing different training procedures and different instructions when conducting the task. In particular, the training involved familiarization with the two stimuli at several levels of perceived intensity to facilitate identification of the varying levels of each stimulus in mixtures. Using a selective attention procedure, adults and children were required to identify the components of stimuli that contained water, sucrose (sweet), sodium chloride (salty), or were binary mixtures of these two tastants. Both groups were successful in identifying the component(s) in each stimulus, demonstrating the importance of appropriate training and test procedures when studying the sensory responses of children. Together with data from the earlier study by Oram et al. ([2001]) it is concluded that 8- to 9-year-olds have the cognitive skills to analyze taste mixtures in terms of the identity of the components and their perceived strengths.