Wine Psychology

[corinth]

James:

I read the same article and it is excellent and makes some very good points.

Sour_grapes very well put. "....explains how expectations, environment, and social cues can fool us into perceiving that our wine tastes better or worse than we would perceive it to taste in absence of these cues" ? "

Some thoughts.

1. Sour grapes, you are right on with your statement and those words in bold are significant for a couple of reasons:
a. This type of research as been around for at least 40-50 years. That being said, maybe the research needs to be updated?
b.judges are subject to "social cues(who is in the audience),environment( what kind of day is it)expectations(very impressive label or I know who has submitted their wine) plus things such as the physical or emotional state of the judge( I am not feeling well today)

2. Great statistics but what you enter into it may be the problem.

3. Even with brain research, good stuff but NOT how a person decides if they like it. That is another matter completely

what about...

1. Everything is scanned these days. Why not share that info with us?

2. WHAT ABOUT WOMEN! if anyone watched 60 minutes last week, Women have not been included in a lot of reaearch. If wine tasting is going to the next level, studies are going to have to include seperate data for men and women.

3. Have the methods for wine tasting changed much in the last 20 to 30 years?


Maybe all the red flags going up is the start of significant change?
Corinth

 

[nucjd]

I would really like to see the Brain imaging. I assume it was functional imaging of the prefrontal cortex and limbic system but I would be really interested in the change of perceived pleasure and would be curious if the smell was the cue rather than the taste buds as the only sensation we have that is directly tied into the limbic system and does not pass through the prefrontal cortex is the sense of smell. That is why smells can trigger such vast emotions more so than other senses. With that being said, very interesting and truly enlightening. I would say this much though. My wife is pretty darn tough on wine and will slaughter it if she thinks it is bad. She does not care at all of price or labels. My wine friends that do a lot of collecting love having her over for a tasting as she is the control for any comparisons

 

[sour_grapes]

Corinth, thanks for the kind words, but they largely were not mine, but rather were mostly from that video. I just altered them a bit to convey what I thought they were objectively trying to say.

 

[corinth]

Sour_grapes" you may have altered them but you did a very nice job.

Nucjd:

OMG! I love it when people talk "dirty(only kidding") to me.
You have definitely hit some really good questions.

Brain imaging, very cool stuff but I get a gut feeling that anything pertaining to this will probably be s result of some other brain research that someone spots and relates it to wine tasting. You got my interest but I digress...

Has wine tasting or the methods that are used been the same over the last 20 Years?
Corinth

 

[GaDawg]

I think at Emory University an fMRI will cost about $10,000 an hour. So this research needs a really big budget

 

[BernardSmith]

I think the bottom line is that no one experiences the world in any way that is not mediated through social , psychological, physiological and biological systems that constitute who we are as sense making human beings. Knowing this we can manipulate the ways we experience the world in ways that others (or ourselves ) may not be very conscious of or aware of. It behooves us to be aware of such manipulations and to be more knowledgeable of the ways we do in fact experience the world.