People differ in their ability to perceive their environment,
and individual differences in vision and hearing are routinely
assessed and, when needed, people are given assistance to
compensate for their deficiencies, i.e., they are offered eyeglasses
or hearing aids. Compared with these two senses,
individual differences in taste are given less attention, and are
not assessed except in cases where people participate in a
research study or have gone to their doctor with specific
complaints about taste loss. Probably this lack of attention is
due to the belief that having a below-average sense of taste is
not as important as having below-average vision and hearing
and also because there is no obvious medical way to ‘correct’ a
person's sense of taste. There are no ‘eye-glasses’ or ‘hearingaid’
for the tongue and compensation for deficiencies in a
person’s sense of taste is currently accomplished in the kitchen
rather than in the doctor's office.