Year 11 Student Camillo Angelucci reflects on a practical experiment this week in Unit 1/2 Psychology.
“This week in Psychology, our class experimented with different foods to help us investigate how packaging affects taste perception. Some of the foods we used to investigate with are Tim tams, Doritos and Jelly beans. For example, we experimented with Tim Tam’s by getting two different pieces unanimously, without knowing which brand they were, and tried both of them and compared the difference between the two. The two brands were Tim tam’s and Just divine. We had to record the results and see which piece we preferred. Earlier in the week, the class did a jelly bean experiment, where were given three jelly beans to eat with our sensory information, and recorded the flavour and colour of the jelly bean. Then we were given another three jelly beans, which we ate without being able to see or smell/taste the jelly bean. We then had to guess the flavour/colour of the jelly beans and see if we guessed it right. In terms of the Doritos experiment, it was similar to the Tim tam experiment, but the teacher had put CC chips on both of the plate. This meant that our class perceived one chip to be Dorito, whereas the other was CC, but they were both the same chip.
I learnt a lot from this week of psychology in terms of how packaging and senses influence our taste perception. I enjoyed the jelly bean experiment the most, as we had to try the jelly beans without being able to taste or see them, and guess the right colour. I was intrigued to find out how taste perception can differ when presented with different packaging, for example through the Dorito experiment, by the teacher holding the packaging up in front of us, it perceived us to believe that plates had two different types of chips. Where both plates had the same type of chips. I thoroughly enjoyed these experiments and recommend any future psychology students to try any of these experiments.”
