The Unique Similarities Between Taste and Sight

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Of the five senses that humans employ in everyday life, taste and sight are two of the more interesting senses. They are continually developed throughout our entire lives and we are exposed to new sights and tastes everyday. Many people think that our senses are all unique and independent of each other, but taste and sight are surprising similar in many aspects, such as their development. Not only are taste and sight developed similarly, but they are also affected by familiarity, socialization, and memory. Although many people in the world believe that all our senses are different in function and development, taste and sight have a unique connection between the two senses that makes them very similar.

Taste and sight seem to be influenced throughout their development by familiarity and socialization. Humans do not enjoy tasting the same things over and over again. They do, however, enjoy tasting foods that are familiar to them. Diane Ackerman writes in her essay, “Taste: The Social Sense,” about how as humans, “we add spices to what we know” (Ackerman 42) thereby making a food that is unfamiliar to us, taste more familiar, which appeals to us. Socialization also plays a big part in the way that humans taste foods. People from different generations in the same area seem to eat and taste the same things based on the culture they were born into. Would the next generation of humans born into the United States eat chicken if the previous generations had not? very doubtful, considering humans enjoy eating with others and sharing similar foods as with other people around them. Ackerman describes the food eaten by the Mexican-Americans who worked on a cattle ranch in New Mexico. Their diet is largely based upon the concept o...

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Taste and sight are two senses that humans use everyday and do not give much thought to. Because taste and sight are very similar in various aspects, the link between the two senses could be made very strong in humans. Humans could be able to associate sights with foods and foods with sights, which could greatly enhance the human life. This connection between the two senses could make each sense even stronger and more vivid. If humans begin to associate these two similar senses together, a strong bond between them could be developed and make them even more powerful than each sense is on its own.

Works Cited

Ackerman, Diane. “Taste: The Social Sense.” Mind Readings: An Anthology for Writers. Ed. Gary Colombo. Boston and New York; Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2002. 36-50

Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. New York: Vintage, 1996.

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