Participants performed poorly on the taste tests
(see Figure 2). Although they were able to recognize
the highly concentrated solutions, even the lowest
concentration should have been readily recognizable
(Pribitkin et al., 2003). The highly concentrated sweet
sample was composed of almost three tablespoons of
sugar per 100 ml sample bottle, but four participants
misidentified the solution as something other than
sweet. Eighteen participants were not able to detect
any taste modality in the low-concentration sucrose
tasting solutions. Participants were most successful
at recognizing salty taste samples, but 10 could not
detect the salty sample at low concentration. Many
confused sour for bitter, particularly at low concentration,
where 28 participants reported that the citric acid
solution tasted bitter Participants performed poorest
on their recognition of bitter Even at high concentration,
9 participants could not taste anything, and 39
could not detect a difference from the rinse water at
low concentration.