We think that If we give our participants a specific sample of food that they do not have the knowledge of what it is. We will tell them something different than what the real flavor is. will their brain be tricked by what they are told they are sampling or will the taste overcome what they think it actually is. We believe that what people think is going to override the real taste the majority of the time because in our research we found that the colour of something can completely change the flavor and people believe that different colours represent different flavors so thinking something will probably change the flavor. So in conclusion we believe that most of the time the real flavor will be overridden.

Reaserch brought to light information that taste buds do not just determine the taste of stuff, expectations also play a small part in the way something tastes.This information was very useful for research. It told us that color is very much associated with the way we taste something. It told us that we as people associate colors with taste like for example most people associate red and pink with sweetness, green and yellow with sour, white with saltines and  black and brown with bitterness. And even infants start picking up these colour and food codes.

Our controlled variables are what the food our participants are testing/eating . Another thing we can control is the way we give our participants the food,also what time we give it to them and one more thing we control is where we give it to them (inside,comfy seat, outside, hard chair) Last one is how much we give them. The non controlled Variables are what the participants fill out on the questionnaires and what they taste.

Preparation

Step 1 Preparations:

Recruit 8 to 10 participants across different age groups and genders for our experiment. Before buying food samples, ask participants if they have food allergies to ensure their safety. Then purchase the food samples (make sure to get all the foods listed). Then prepare the testing area by getting a table with the food samples that are blended (so that the participants have a less chance of knowing what they are eating by the texture.). And also make sure to cover the food so your participants can not see what they are testing. Find a comfy place for your participants.(Make sure that the room is quiet and calm for each and every one of your participants). 

Step 2 Experiment Setup 

Step 1: Prepare master mixture bowls for each flavour, including salty, sour, bitter, sweet and spicy. Each will have one cup of plain yogurt as the base and a measured amount of the flavour (sweet - 2 teaspoons, salty - one teaspoon, bitter - half tsp teaspoon, sour - 2  teaspoons of banana pepper, 14 drops of tabasco spicy. 

Step 2: Participants will be seated and blindfolded.

Step 3: Present participle with each of the flavours one by one. Do not tell them anything about the flavour. Record their taste observations on the Questionnaire form. Record what each flavour was on the observation Questionnaire as well.

Step 4: Present participants with each of the flavours, one by one, but this time tell them beforehand what the flavour is - but don’t tell them the correct flavour (for example, if it is sweet, tell them it is spicy). Record what you told them as well as their taste observations on the Questionnaire. 

Step 5: Collect questionnaires and enter data from the collected sheets into the database.

Step 6: Analyze and make a conclusion.

Notes

Do not use the same spoon for every sample. For every person they should have their own spoon for each sample to lessen the possibility of cross contamination.

Then  a mix of the truth and lie about the flavor and after they have tasted all the samples you will collect questionnaires from the participants.

Our observations were: When we told them nothing the majority of the time  would get the flavor correct but sometimes they would taste something different then what it actually was. In round 2 the majority got the flavor wrong. When the participants had the samples In round 2 when we told them a lie when they got it wrong we found out that 42% said the lie we told them; which is very interesting.

What we have found is that during round 1 they would guess what it actually is. and in round 2 we found that most people said the same thing as what we sadi in insead of what it actually is, they guessed what we said.

Conclusion 

In the first round where the participants were given no information, the majority of the time (54.5%) they got the flavor correct. But sometimes they got the flavor incorrect (45.5%). But in round 2 when we told them a lie about the flavor we see the percentage drastically change from 54.5% correct to only 30% correct. So in conclusion our hypothesis was correct thoughts and expectations do affect the way we taste.

“How can our research, project and information help you in the real world” you may be wondering. Well the way our project info can be apple in the real world is: Parents can  tell their children something is sweet or yummy and manipulate the child's taste so the child will eat more healthy and maybe grow into thinking something tastes or liking something because their brains will recognize it as something else.

The sourses of error in our projects is when someone did not know what the flavor and could not describe the flavor. Also a sourse of error is we eyeballed the amount we gave each particapent so we could have given one person more flavor than the others. If we had a young particapent they could not be able tell us what the flavor is properly. 

https://zoe.com/learn/how-color-changes-taste-flavor

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/expectations-influence-se/#:~:text=Tastebuds%20alone%20do%20not%20 determine,taste%20 registers%20in%20the%20 brain

https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/how-does-colour-affect-the-way-we-eat

We thank all the teachers who have helped us with it. Mr. Pedersen, Miss. Caddel and Mr. Wolf, Jackie Mchardyfor buying all of the Materials and all of the participants! We are very grateful for your help and for your support in our project.

Thank you