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Many factors play a role in choosing what to eat or drink. Here we explored the role of sensation to explain these differences, drawing on consumer reviews for commercially available food products sold through an online retailer. We analyzed 393,568 unique food product reviews from Amazon customers with a total of 256,043 reviewers rating 67,553 products. Taste-associated words were mentioned more than words associated with cost, food texture, customer service, nutrition, smell, or those referring to the trigeminal senses, e.g., spicy. We computed the overall number of reviews that mentioned taste qualities: the wordtastewas mentioned in over 30% of the reviews (N= 142,768), followed bysweet(10.7%, N=42,315),bitter(2.9%, N=11,424),sour(2.1%, N=8,252), andsalty(1.4%, N=5,688). We identified 38 phrases used to describe the evaluation of sweetness, finding that ‘too sweet’ was used in nearly 0.8% of the reviews and oversweetness was mentioned over 25 times more often than under-sweetness. We then focused on ‘polarizing’ products, those that elicited a wide difference of opinion (as measured by the ranges of the product ratings). Using the products that had more than 50 reviews, we identified the top 10 most polarizing foods (i.e., those with the largest standard deviation in ratings) and provide representative comments about the polarized taste experience of consumers. Overall, these results support the primacy of taste in real-world food ratings and individualized taste experience, such as whether a product is ‘too sweet’. Analysis of consumer review data sets can provide information about purchasing decisions and customer sensory responses to particular commercially available products and represents a promising methodology for the emerging field of sensory nutrition.

This study's purpose was to test two possible interventions framed within the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) that may improve motorists' attitudes towards cyclists, as well as motorists' intentions to improve their on-road behavior around cyclists. A 2x2 factorial design was used, with participants randomly assigned to either read commercial vehicle laws or bicycle laws, and either watch a traffic camera video, or a first-person bicyclist crash video. Participants then completed a measure of their attitudes and intentions during the lab session and again approximately two weeks later. It was expected that participants who read the bicycle legislation information and also watched the crash video would show the most improved attitudes and intentions to behave after the lab session relative to control; however, no significant effect of either manipulation was found. Further refinements would include a more multi-faceted approach to the Theory of Planned Behavior., (M.A.) -- Towson University, 2013.

Comparative transcriptomics of olfactory mucosae offers clues into the putative functions of highly abundant ORs in mammals., The mammalian olfactory system displays species-specific adaptations to different ecological niches. To investigate the evolutionary dynamics of olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) subtypes across mammalian evolution, we applied RNA sequencing of whole olfactory mucosa samples from mouse, rat, dog, marmoset, macaque, and human. We find that OSN subtypes, representative of all known mouse chemosensory receptor gene families, are present in all analyzed species. Further, we show that OSN subtypes expressing canonical olfactory receptors are distributed across a large dynamic range and that homologous subtypes can be either highly abundant across all species or species/order specific. Highly abundant mouse and human OSN subtypes detect odorants with similar sensory profiles and sense ecologically relevant odorants, such as mouse semiochemicals or human key food odorants. Together, our results allow for a better understanding of the evolution of mammalian olfaction in mammals and provide insights into the possible functions of highly abundant OSN subtypes.