Does color affect taste?

We have tested people to guess a skittle flavor and many people have guessed incorrectly but some correctly.
Baani Kaur Hallan Japseerat Kaur Bhullar
Grade 6

Presentation

No video provided

Hypothesis

 We think the color yellow will be the most guessed color because yellow is a lemon flavour which makes the taste more different from the others and green  will be the lowest guessed color because of the similar taste of red and purple.

Research

When a food's color is different than what we think, our brain tells us that it tastes different. Our taste buds affect the four basic groups of taste, which are sweet, salty, sour, and spicy. When your taste buds taste the foods ,they send signals to your brain to try to think about the flavor of the food . Also eyes send signals to the brain based on the color because we look at our food before eating. Our brain is trying to trick us into thinking  about the taste based on different colours like  red is sweet or spicy  and yellow is sour. Without seeing the foods  our taste buds might get confused and not recognize the lemon flavor in pudding or cherry flavor in any foods that we expect.

Variables

Manipulated Variable: Flavour of Skittle

Responding Variable: The testers trying to guess the flavour.

Controlled Variable : The Skittles.

 

Procedure

1.We will proceed by giving a blindfold to you .

2. You will be given five skittles of different colours

 3. First you have to taste the skittle and guess the flavour with a blindfold covering your eyes

4.We will record your guesses.

 

Observations

The results were that purple had the most guessed color and green had the least. 5 out of 5 people guessed purple and 4 out of 5 people guessed red and orange correctly.3 out of 5 people guessed yellow and finally 2 out of 5 guessed green.

Analysis

 

After doing this experiment, we found that the most commonly guessed flavor was purple, while the least guessed flavor was red. In the hypothesis purple was not the expected most guessed color and red was not the least guessed color.Although our hypothesis was not supported by the data, our experiment still show if color affects taste or not. The purple color has a flavour that stands thats is probably why it was the most guessed color.The lowest guessed color red because of the similar taste of green and purple as we  expected.

 

Conclusion

Color can impact how we experience the taste of food and drinks. Different colors can make flavors seem sweeter, more intense, or even change our overall taste of food or drinks. The results of our skittle experiment was the most color skittle everyone guessed was purple and the lowest guessed flavour was green.

Application

Sources Of Error

A couple of our sources of error were we had to re-do the experiment 3 times because we had a different topic  before but then we changed it. Another one of our sources of error was that one of us was in india when the science fair started

Citations

Acknowledgement

We would like to give a special thanks to Tegh singh(Baani’s brother)Navdeep( Japseerat’ older sister),Nimret,Japneet,Nimrit(for being our testers) and special acknowledgement for our teachers Mrs.Sharma,Mrs Charlotte and Ms.Harpreet  for their help and patience thought the project .

Attachments

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