The judgment of very weak sensory stimuli : with special reference to the absolute threshold of sensation for common salt / by Warner Brown.

  • Warner Brown
Date:
1914
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The judgment of very weak sensory stimuli : with special reference to the absolute threshold of sensation for common salt / by Warner Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the salt quality, when perceived, is more clear or unambiguous than the others J As a further point in favor of using salt as a stimulus it may be noted that the tongue is about equally sensitive all around to salt, while for the other qualities some portions are more sensitive than others.® On this account it makes less difference with salt if the stimulus does not always strike first on the same part of the tongue. T Kiesow, Ztsch. f. Psychol., vol. 33, (1903), p. 456, gives the following reaction times: Salt, 0.308 sec. Sugar, 0.446 sec. HCl, 0.536 sec. Quinine, 1.082 sec. See also von Vintschgau and Ilonigschmied, Pfliiger’s Arch. f. d. ges. Physiol., vol. 10 (1875), p. 42, and the article by von Vintschgau in Her- mann’s Handb. d. Physiol., vol. 3, pt. 2 (1880), p. 205. iSotwithstanding the fact that the salt solutions used were less intense than the other tastes, von Vintschgau, Arch. f. d. ges. Physiol., vol. 14 (1877), p. 550, found that the time required to discriminate salt from water was less than the time required to discriminate the other tastes from water, as follows: Salt, 0.276 sec. Acid, 0.332 sec. Sugar, 0.384 sec. Bitter, 0.413 sec. Salt shows the least difference between the maximum and minimum reaction times (ibid., p. 551). The time for discriminating between two tastes is shortest when one of these tastes is salt (ibid., p. 554). 8 Wundt, Physiol. Psychol., vol. 2 (1910), p. 62: Haenig, Philos. Studien, vol. 17 (1901), pp. 606-608.
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