What If Our Perspective On Flavour Is All Wrong?

What if everything you think you know about flavour is wrong?

What if you have been lied to your entire life?

What if this lie has come from your own mind?

The commonly accepted definition of flavour is that it is ‘perception resulting from stimulating a combination of the taste buds, the olfactory organs, and chemesthetic receptors within the oral cavity’ - ASTM International standards. The important word here is perception, but what if science suggests that flavour isn’t perception at all?

Perception is a faculty of awareness, however, research points towards flavour being a construct of the nonconscious mind. A system for assessing stimuli that operates behind the curtains of awareness. The perception of flavour – as we know it – may simply be the output. A storyline that our nonconscious mind wants us to believe.

If you’re ready to follow the white rabbit, let’s peel back the layers of consciousness to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Is flavour a running commentary on the world that we are blissfully unaware of? Is it not perception after all, but a message from our inner brain much like having a thought, a feeling, or gut instinct? The traditional understanding of flavour may in fact be nothing more than a neurological illusion, a façade, or even a fantasy novel.

"It would be so nice if something made sense for a change." Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

In a hurry? Here are the key points:

• The nonconscious mind detects subthreshold odours and tastes, one’s that we are not consciously aware of.

• This suggests that flavour is created in the nonconscious mind, separating it from cognitive awareness.

• What consider to be the perception of flavour is a filtered version of events.

• We each have two versions of flavour:

  • the nonconscious version, whereby even subthreshold congeners are monitored.

  • the conscious version, the story that our nonconscious mind wants us to accept.

• Products designed to meet the needs of one’s nose or palate are outdated. Products must speak to the subconscious instead.

Flavour as a Cognitive Process

Let’s start with a fundamental truth – the conventional viewpoint of flavour is that it is a projection of the mind. While we are fooled into believing that flavour is the molecules that circulate within a glass, the reality is that it is constructed by the mind – 100%. Our flavour senses send signals to the brain, but it is only within our cranial hard drive that such notions as fruity, fragrant, and bitter are created.

Without the brain there is no flavour. Flavour active molecules are nothing more than stimuli. And without a brain to stimulate they are meaningless conglomerates of atoms bounding about in the universe. So, in this sense, flavour is a cognitive process – or so we think.

You see, cognition is assumed to be an intellectual response of an individual to external reality. Which indicates a level of conscious awareness. I see. I smell. I taste. It stands to reason. However, it would seem that when it comes to flavour at least, much of it may happen beneath the layers of intellectual response. Allow me to explain.

Your Brain Knows More Than You

Research by Hummel et al (2013), demonstrated that the brain is aware of odours, or indeed flavours, that pass the conscious mind unnoticed. How? It appears that although odours may be in concentrations below sensory awareness, the nonconscious mind can still detect and process them.

The study explored how the brain responds to odour mixtures containing components that are below the threshold of conscious detection. Researchers used fMRI to compare brain activity between two groups: people who were sensitive to ambroxan (a perfume ingredient) and those who were not.

While neither group could consciously tell the difference between a mixture with ambroxan and one without it, the sensitive group showed significantly stronger brain activations, particularly in the insula and cingulate cortex, areas linked to olfactory and emotional processing.

But this is where it gets interesting.

Even those who could not smell ambroxan (the insensitive group) still showed distinct neural responses when ambroxan was present in a mixture. This suggests that subthreshold odours can alter brain activity without being consciously perceived. The results reinforce the idea that olfactory perception isn’t purely about what we think we smell, it also involves nonconscious neural processing. Or rather it is formed from nonconscious neural processing.

But wait, there’s more…

A study by Labbe et al (2006) at the Nestle´ Research Center, Switzerland, investigated whether odours at subthreshold levels could still enhance the perception of sweetness in a sucrose solution. In a two-part experiment, the researchers first identified ethyl butyrate (strawberry-like) as having strong sweetness-enhancing properties and maltol as having weak ones when used at suprathreshold levels. Then, using a continuous liquid delivery system that mimicked real-life drinking conditions, they introduced these odours at subthreshold concentrations during tasting to see if they could modulate sweetness perception without being consciously noticed.

The results showed that subthreshold levels of ethyl butyrate significantly increased the perceived sweetness of the solution, regardless of concentration, whereas maltol had little or inconsistent effect. The enhancement was not due to smell detection (participants reported no aroma) or the testing apparatus. This suggests a nonconscious sensory integration between smell and taste, even when odour is below detection threshold, likely influenced by familiarity between the odour and sweet taste.

A paper by Dalton et al, (2000) also showed that people can detect flavour-like experiences even when neither the taste nor the smell components are consciously detectable on their own. Using a clever psychophysical design, Dalton and colleagues presented participants with subthreshold concentrations of a sweet taste (saccharin) and an almond-like odour (benzaldehyde). On their own, participants could not detect either stimulus – but when combined, their brains registered the blend as perceptible.

This cross-modal sensory summation happened without conscious awareness of the individual components, revealing that the brain integrates taste and smell at a central, pre-conscious level. The finding that only certain ‘congruent’ pairings (like sweet and cherry) triggered this integration also suggests that experience-driven, learned associations shape nonconscious flavour processing.

These studies support the idea that flavour perception can be shaped by implicit, below-threshold cues. They are detected on a nonconscious level but evade conscious perception. Can you see where we are going here?

The Phantoms of Flavour

These studies suggest our brains are constantly processing stimuli – olfactory, visual, auditory – whether you're aware of it or not. From priming attention and triggering emotion, to integrating multisensory input, much of what shapes our decisions and perceptions happens outside conscious awareness.

Therefore, it isn’t unreasonable to understand how what we perceive as flavour is merely an output of the nonconscious mind – an organoleptic phantom if you will. It seems that the nonconscious mind is aware of far more than the conscious mind when it comes to sensory inputs. And creates a perception of sensory stimuli before forwarding an edited version to the conscious mind.

In this sense, flavour is constructed behind closed doors – away from prying eyes – and separated from perceptual awareness. The part that reaches conscious thought is merely a sensory press release – what our nonconscious mind wants us to believe rather than true facts.

Need More Convincing?

A 2014 study by Boothby, Clark, and Bargh explored how nonconscious social context can amplify sensory experiences, including flavour. Participants tasted identical chocolates either with another person at the same time (shared experience) or alone in the presence of someone doing something else.

Even without conversation or interaction, the chocolate was rated as significantly more flavourful and enjoyable when the experience was shared. In a second experiment, when tasting an unpleasant chocolate, participants rated it as more unpleasant during the shared experience. This ruled out the idea that shared experiences are simply more enjoyable due to social bonding — instead, they are intensified, for better or worse.

Critically, participants were not aware that the presence of another person affected their perception. In fact, the vast majority denied being influenced, despite clear differences in ratings. This strongly supports the idea that nonconscious processes can shape flavour perception, not through direct input from the senses alone, but through subtle cues from our environment, such as someone else silently sharing the experience. This finding expands our understanding of flavour as a socially and neurologically constructed experience, influenced by attention, co-presence, and cognitive mirroring well beneath the level of conscious awareness.

A paper by Elgendi et al, (2018) demonstrated how subliminal priming – exposure to stimuli below the threshold of awareness – can influence perception, emotion, and decision-making without conscious recognition. It shows that sensory cues such as odours, even when undetected, can alter how we evaluate unrelated stimuli (like faces), and that brain responses occur in response to these subliminal inputs. These findings align with how flavour is experienced: as an automatic, multisensory integration shaped by emotion, memory, and expectation – often before we’re consciously aware of it.

A further paper by Lucini et al, (2015) also supports the idea that flavour is a nonconscious process by showing that the parts of the brain’s functional network that remain active even when conscious awareness fades are involved in subliminal perception. Using fMRI and k-core network analysis, the authors demonstrate that during the transition from conscious to subliminal perception, only the most deeply embedded core brain regions (like the visual cortex and prefrontal gyrus) stay functionally active. These regions form the ‘nonconscious backbone’ of awareness.

This challenges the assumption that conscious perception drives experience, suggesting instead that a robust, unconscious network underpins and possibly precedes consciousness itself. Applied to flavour, it implies that key components of flavour perception, like smell, texture, and multisensory integration, are likely processed within this nonconscious core, before they ever reach conscious awareness.

A Trick Of The Mind

It’s an uneasy thought, is it not? That we are not in control of what we perceive. That behind the curtains of reality, everything we smell and taste is edited and redacted before being publicly released. What assurance do we have that perception is a true account of the world around us?

Well, our perception of the world is created in the mind. Much like how a digital camera converts light on a sensor into pixels arranged in such a way to represent the world viewed through the lens. The system has been calibrated to mimic the human eye, but as filters confirm, those pixels can be rearranged in all manner of ways.

So really we have no assurance whatsoever. But it does explain why we enjoy certain flavours without being able to elucidate why we enjoy them. The nonconscious mind makes the decision for us. Like a skilled magician it tricks us into believing its own storyline. The conscious mind is merely there to enjoy the show, in the false belief that what it perceives is in fact reality.

Why Does This Matter?

Understanding that conscious flavour is merely a projection of our inner neurological workings shines a philosophical light on the very nature of food and drink. It may help to explain some mysteries of preference – such as why do we love or hate some food and drinks without having a rational understanding of the reasons? Perhaps our inner workings are making decisions on our behalf.

Is it time to reevaluate what flavour is? To see it as a nonconscious process that we will never experience in its entirety. That what we believe we taste is nothing more than a projection, much like using a filter on one’s camera phone - the input remains the same but the output is altered. Therefore, flavour is not perception, it is a nonconscious process. Like being plugged into The Matrix, what we consider to be flavour is simply a fairytale we tell ourselves.

Most importantly, however, the implications for flavour designers and taste tinkerers are profound. While we assess a product by what we can smell and taste, it’s likely there is far more going on beyond what our conscious minds are unaware of. It means that products designed to meet the needs of one’s nose or palate are outdated. Products must speak to the mysterious recesses of our subconscious instead.

One thing is certain – we each have two versions of flavour. Firstly, we have the nonconscious version, whereby even ‘subthreshold’ congeners are monitored, analysed, and added to the picture. Secondly, we have the conscious version, the story that our nonconscious mind wants us to accept.

“After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” - Morpheus, The Matrix

Want to use insights like these to give your team the sensory advantage? Get in touch here to ask about our workshops for flavourists, panel teams, and production specialists.

References:

• Thomas Hummel, Selda Olgun, Johannes Gerber, Ursula Huchel and Johannes Frasnelli (2013). Brain responses to odor mixtures with sub-threshold components. Frontiers in Psychology.

• P. Dalton, N. Doolittle, H. Nagata and P.A.S. Breslin (2000). The merging of the senses: integration of subthreshold taste and smell. Nature America.

• D. Labbe, A. Rytz, C. Morgenegg, S. Ali and N. Martin (2006). Subthreshold Olfactory Stimulation Can Enhance Sweetness. Chemical Senses.

• Mohamed Elgendi, Parmod Kumar, Skye Barbic, Newton Howard, Derek Abbott, and Andrzej Cichocki (2018). Subliminal Priming – State of the Art and Future Perspectives. Behavioral Sciences.

• Francesca Arese Lucini, Gino Del Ferraro, Mariano Sigman, and Hernán A. Makse (2015). How the brain transitions from conscious to subliminal perception. Neuroscience.

Erica J. Boothby, Margaret S. Clark and John A. Bargh (2014). Shared Experiences Are Amplified. Psychological Science.