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Just having a face
: See Saeideh Bakshi, David A. Shamma, and Eric Gilbert, “Faces Engage Us: Photos with Faces Attract More Likes and Comments on
Instagram.”
ACM: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(2014): 965–74.

Are liking and disliking
: The philosopher Karl Duncker notes that “the unpleasantness of a toothache and the pleasantness of a beautiful view are not likely to coexist—not so much because the two hedonic tones have opposite signs, but because the underlying experiences or attitudes are incomparable.” See Duncker, “On Pleasure, Emotion, and Striving,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
1, no. 4 (June 1941): 391–430.

In 2000, a team of Italian
: C. Geroldi et al., “Pop Music and Frontotemporal Dementia,”
Neurology
55 (2000): 1935–36. In another case, in which the aesthetic transformation rather went the other way, a group of neuroscientists reported a patient whose liking for hard rock suddenly shifted—in the wake of a left temporal lobectomy—to a “preference for Celtic or Corsican polyphonic singing.” The patient, they noted, “was surprised by his taste changes, did not find that they were the mere result of maturation, and complained about them.” François Sellal et al., “Dramatic Changes in Artistic Preference After Left Temporal Lobectomy,”
Epilepsy and Behavior
4 (2003): 449–51.

It was not so much
: See, for example, Daniel J. Graham, Simone Stockinger, and Helmut Leder, “An Island of Stability: Art Images and Natural Scenes—but Not Natural Faces—Show Consistent Esthetic Response in Alzheimer's-Related Dementia,”
Frontiers in Psychology
4 (March 2013), article 107. Curiously, the study found that people's recall of photographs of faces was far less stable than their preference for landscape and other paintings. The authors suggest that Alzheimer's patients, upon viewing faces, may be suffering “cognitive interference”—for example, a nagging thought that they have seen this photograph before; paintings, meanwhile, might “be evaluated more easily on basic esthetic grounds, with less interference of face detection and recognition systems.”

In an experiment conducted
: R. Haller et al., “The Influence of Early Experience with Vanillin on Food Preference Later in Life,”
Chemical Senses
24, no. 4 (1999): 465–67. The authors raise the interesting point that as “bottle feeding stops long before children speak,” the experiment raises the idea that “olfactory memory” exists outside “verbal memory.” We remember what we smell even before we know what the
what
is.

It is unlikely they made
: Kevin Melchionne makes the interesting point that because “it is difficult to imagine doubting our immediate, sensual responses to food”—even if we might not be able to locate the precise reasons—we carry that confidence in our own judgment into fields like art, where we must certainly know what we like. See Melchionne, “On the Old Saw ‘I Know Nothing About Art but I Know What I Like,' ”
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
68, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 131–40.

But the expert musicians
: See Claudia Fritz et al., “Player Preferences Among New and Old Violins,”
PNAS
109, no. 3 (2012): 760–63. In Fritz's study, most players could not actually distinguish the old from the new instruments. That study was criticized because the testing was done in a hotel room. However, in a follow-up study whose locations include rehearsal spaces and a concert hall, more musicians preferred the new instruments. As Fritz cautions, there “is no way of knowing the extent to which our test instruments (old or new) are representative of their kind”—the same might be said about the musicians—“so results cannot
be projected to the larger population of fine violins.” But it certainly raises the idea that what people love about an old Italian violin is that it
is
an old Italian violin, rather than its inherent sonic virtues. Fritz et al., “Soloist Evaluations of Six Old Italian and Six New Violins,”
PNAS
111, no. 20 (2014): 7224–29.

“adaptive unconscious”
: See Timothy Wilson, “Self-Knowledge and the Adaptive Unconscious,” in
Neuroscience and the Human Person: New Perspectives on Human Activities
, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Scripta Varia 121 (Vatican City, 2013).

Following his example
: One designer created a book, equipped with facial recognition software, that would not open until the prospective reader's face was completely neutral; that is, there was no prejudging going on. See Alison Flood, “The Book That Judges You by the Cover,”
Books
(blog),
Guardian
, Feb. 2, 2015,
http://​www.​theguardian.​com/​global/​booksblog/​2015/​feb/​02/​book-​judges-​you-​by-​your-​cover-​moore-​thijs-​biersteker
.

“the archetype of all taste”
: Pierre Bourdieu,
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste
(London: Routledge, 1986), 79.

“with such other worthy”
: See Paul Rozin, “Preadaptation and the Puzzles and Properties of Pleasure,” in
Well-Being: Foundations of Hedonic Psychology
, ed. Daniel Kahneman, Edward Diener, and Norbert Schwarz (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), 114.

In some experiments
: Curt P. Richter, “Experimentally Produced Reactions to Food Poisoning in Wild and Domesticated Rats,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Science
56 (1953): 225–39. It should be noted that no one has probably done more to understand rat behavior than Richter. As one account noted, “From 1919 to 1977, Richter conducted a steady stream of research projects on psychobiological phenomena of the rat, including spontaneous activity, biological clocks, physiologic effects of adrenalectomy, self-selection of nutrients, poisoning, stress, and domestication.” See Mark A. Suckow, Steven H. Weisbroth, and Craig L. Franklin, eds.,
The Laboratory Rat
(New York: Academic Press, 2005), 14.

We are particularly alert
: See, for example, Léri Morin-Audebrand et al., “The Role of Novelty Detection in Food Memory,”
Acta Psychologica
139 (2012): 233–38. As the authors note, “People may spend a long time finding the ten differences between two similar pictures in visual puzzles, but will usually immediately notice the slightest differences in the odor, flavor, and mouthfeel of foods, although they cannot describe them.”

This alarm is most well tuned
: As the prominent psychologist Wilhelm Wundt described it, more than a century ago, “gradually substitute for a sweet sensation one of sour or bitter, keeping the intensity constant,” and “it will be observed that, for equal intensities, sour and, more especially, bitter produce a much stronger feeling than sweet.” See Wilhelm Max Wundt,
Outlines of Psychology
, accessed Oct. 14, 2013,
http://​psychclassics.​yorku.​ca/​Wundt/​Outlines/​sec7.​htm
.

We start getting
really
choosy
: See, for example, Gillian Harris, “Development of Taste and Food Preferences in Children,”
Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care
3, no. 3 (May 2008): 315–19.

Even our desire for salt
: B. J. Cowart, G. K. Beauchamp, and J. A. Mennella, “Development
of Taste and Smell in the Neonate,” in
Fetal and Neonatal Physiology
, 3rd ed., vol. 2, ed. R. A. Polin, W. W. Fox, and S. H. Abman (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 2004), 1819–27.

those English burghs with “wich”
: This detail comes from Robert P. Erickson, “A Study of the Science of Taste: On the Origins and Influence of the Core Ideas,”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
31 (2008): 59–105.

Even anencephalic babies
: J. E. Steiner, “The Gustofacial Response: Observation on Normal and Anencephalic Newborn Infants,” in
Symposium on Oral Sensation and Perception—IV (Development in the Fetus and Infant)
, ed. J. F. Bosma (Bethesda, Md.: NIH-DHEW, 1973), 254–78.

No one living really dislikes
: Another interesting indicator of how much we treasure sweetness is that it seems, at least according to one study, that we can more accurately remember the sweetness of a meal than, say, its texture. See Léri Morin-Audebrand et al., “Different Sensory Aspects of a Food Are Not Remembered with Equal Acuity,”
Food Quality and Preference
20 (2009): 92–99.

Cilantro, for some
: Nicholas Eriksson et al., “A Genetic Variant near Olfactory Receptor Genes Influences Cilantro Preference,”
Flavour
1, no. 22 (2012), accessed Nov. 1, 2013,
http://​www.​flavour​journal.​com/​content/​pdf/​2044-​7248-​1-​22.​pdf
.

The ability of humans
: See JinLiang Xue and Gary D. Dial, “Raising Intact Male Pigs for Meat: Detecting and Preventing Boar Taint,”
Swine Health and Production
5, no. 4 (1997): 151–58. As a testament to the variety of sensory experiences humans can often have, boar taint, the authors note, has been compared to a huge range of other scents, both good and bad: “The smell and/or taste of boar-tainted meat has been described variously as an ‘off' or ‘boar' odor; onion-like, perspiration-like, or urine-like; like perfume, wood, musk, or ‘Ivory' soap; sweet, fruity, ammonia-like, and animal-like; and fecal or bitter.”

Just because you find
: As Jane Wardle and Lucy Cooke write about the famed “supertaster” aversion to the chemical compound known as PROP, “Despite the attractiveness of the idea that variations in taste sensitivities could underlie food dislikes, the weight of the evidence is that PROP taster status has only limited influence on food preferences in everyday life.” See Wardle and Cook, “Genetic and Environmental Determinants of Children's Food Preferences,” supplement,
British Journal of Nutrition
99, no. S1 (2000): S15–S21.

“It is striking”
: Martin Yeomans, “Development of Human Learned Flavor Likes and Dislikes,” in
Obesity Prevention: The Role of Brain and Society on Individual Behavior
, ed. Laurette Dubé et al. (New York: Academic Press, 2010), 164.

Studies show that most of us
: See Peter H. Gleick,
Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water
(New York: Island Press, 2010), 81.

Eggplant, after all
: See “Plant Guide,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, accessed Nov. 1, 2013,
http://​plants.​usda.​gov/​plantguide/​pdf/​pg_​some.​pdf
.

Then again, tomatoes
: And thankfully, as one researcher notes, tomatoes or potatoes or other ilk from the genus
Solanum
seem unlikely to actually kill us: “Fatalities from solanine poisoning are not well documented in the modern medical literature.” Donald G. Barceloux, “Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Solanine Toxicity (
Solanum tuberosum L., Solanum lycopersicum
L.),”
Disease-a-Month
55, no. 6 (June 2009): 391–402.

She is certainly not
: In Gabriel García Márquez's novel
Love in the Time of Cholera
,
we learn that the protagonist Fermina Daza “had despised eggplants ever since she was a little girl, even before she had tasted them, because it always seemed to her that they were the color of poison.” García Márquez,
Love in the Time of Cholera
(New York: Vintage, 2007), 208. And indeed, Fermina does grow to like eggplants.

“most disliked” vegetable
:
Japan Today
, Sept. 4, 2001, accessed Oct. 14, 2013,
http://​www.​japantoday.​com/​category/​food/​view/​eggplant-​most-​hated-​vegetable-​among-​kids
.

“People like to be”
: Quoted in Harry T. Lawless,
Sensory Evaluation of Food
(New York: Springer, 2010), 260.

The Cornell University researcher
: Brian Wansink and Jeffery Sobal, “Mindless Eating: The 200 Daily Food Decisions We Overlook,”
Environment and Behavior
39, no. 1 (2007): 106–23.

we like the same food less
: Brian Wansink et al., “Dining in the Dark: How Uncertainty Influences Food Acceptance in the Absence of Light,”
Food Quality and Preference
24, no. 1 (2012): 209–12.

Research has shown
: Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, “The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips,”
Journal of Sensory Studies
19, no. 5 (Oct. 2004): 347–63.

high-frequency “crispiness”
: In food “rheology” circles, the word “crispy” is a very specific thing, different from the lower-pitched, longer-lasting sounds of “crunchiness.” Notes one study, “Crispy foods generate high pitched sounds with frequencies higher than 5 kHz, crunchy foods yield low pitched sounds with a characteristic peak on frequency range of 1.25–2 kHz.” See Mayyawadee Saeleaw and Gerhard Schleining, “A Review: Crispness in Dry Foods and Quality Measurements Based on Acoustic–Mechanical Destructive Techniques,”
Journal of Food Engineering
105, no. 3 (2011): 387–99.

People have, for example, reported
: There are many studies to this effect, but see, for example, Cynthia DuBose et al., “Effects of Colorants and Flavorants on Identification, Perceived Flavor Intensity, and Hedonic Quality of Fruit-Flavored Beverages and Cake,”
Journal of Food Science
45 (1980): 1393–99.

When trained panelists
: See Lance G. Philips et al., “The Influence of Nonfat Dry Milk on the Sensory Properties, Viscosity, and Color of Lowfat Milks,”
Journal of Dairy Science
78, no. 10 (Oct. 1995): 2113–18.

Flipping the switch
: This story is reported in Herbert Mieselman and Halliday McFie,
Food Acceptance and Consumption
(New York: Springer, 1996), 13. The study it refers to is J. Wheatley, “Putting Color into Marketing,”
Marketing
, Oct. 23–29, 1973, 67.

“In virtually all analyses”
: Carolyn Korsmeyer,
Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014), 51.

In Zellner's plating study
: Curiously, the researchers found that people seemed to feel the same about the string beans, one of the foods on offer, regardless of how they were presented. In a line that resonates with parents everywhere, they write, “There might be something special about vegetables that makes it difficult to change how much people like them.” Debra Zellner et al., “It Tastes as Good as It Looks! The Effect of Food Presentation on Liking for the Flavor of Food,”
Appetite
77 (June 2014): 31–35.

“What is the adaptive”
: Rozin, “Preadaptation and the Puzzles and Properties of Pleasure,” 16.

“function to promote”
: Paul Rozin, J. Haidt, and C. R. McCauley, “Disgust,” in
Handbook of Emotions
, ed. M. Lewis and J. M. Haviland-Jones (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 638.

This particular face
: See H. A. Chapman et al., “In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust,”
Science
323, no. 5918 (2009): 1222–26.

and we use more facial muscles
: Tsuyoshi Horio, “EMG Activities of Facial and Chewing Muscles in Human Adults in Response to Taste Stimuli,”
Perceptual and Motor Skills
97 (2003): 289–98.

Instances of disgusting behavior
: Ibid., 644.

“Choices depend on taste”
: W. M. Gorman, “Tastes, Habits, and Choice,”
International Economic Review
8, no. 2 (June 1967): 218.

“innately appealing”
: See Sam Sifton, “Always Be Crisping,”
New York Times
, Sept. 13, 2012.

“likely to evoke the sense”
: John S. Allen,
The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship with Food
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 36.

The more tempting the language
: See Esther K. Papies, “Tempting Food Words Activate Eating Simulations,”
Frontiers in Psychology
4 (2013), doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00838.

“An item won't be on”
: Tyler Cowen,
An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies
(New York: Penguin, 2012), 71.

The mere fact of having a menu
: See D. Bernstein, M. Ottenfeld, and C. L. Witte, “A Study of Consumer Attitudes Regarding Variability of Menu Offerings in the Context of an Upscale Seafood Restaurant,”
Journal of Foodservice Business Research
11, no. 4 (2008): 398–411.

And while the anticipation
: Lauren A. Leotti and Mauricio R. Delgado, “The Inherent Reward of Choice,”
Psychological Science
22, no. 10 (2011): 1310–18.

“memories are the building blocks”
: Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy Wilson, “Prospection: Experiencing the Future,”
Science
, Sept. 7, 2007, 1351–54. As they note, “Mental simulation is the means by which the brain discovers what it already knows. When faced with decisions about future events, the cortex generates simulations, briefly tricking subcortical systems into believing that those events are unfolding in the present and then taking note of the feelings these systems produce.” It is as if we rehearse in the moment the future pleasure (or displeasure) to come.

“The present is never our end”
: Blaise Pascal,
The Thoughts, Letters, and Opuscules of Blaise Pascal
(New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869), 194.

When people in one study
: Daniel Kahneman and Jackie Snell, “Predicting a Changing Taste: Do People Know What They Will Like?,”
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making
5, no. 3 (Sept. 1992): 187–200.

“The correlation between”
: Debra A. Zellner et al., “Conditioned Enhancement of Humans' Liking for Flavor by Pairing with Sweetness,”
Learning and Motivation
14 (1983): 338–50.

We also seem to crave
: This has been called “diversification bias.” Daniel Read and George Loewenstein have theorized various reasons why we may be biased toward more variety than we actually want when we make decisions, some involving
“bias,” others not. In the latter camp, they note, “people seek variety because they are risk averse and uncertain about their preferences. Choosing variety reduces the likelihood of repeatedly consuming something undesirable.” Variety also helps us find new favorites. But among the “biased” explanations is the idea that people “subjectively shrink the interconsumption interval” when making a choice; for example, when presented with the chance of consuming one's favorite ice cream every day for a week, the scenario may sound as if that were a lot of ice cream consumption. But a day lasts a long time (and ice cream is pleasant, after all). “Yet satiation is fleeting, and our preferences typically return to their preconsumption level within a short time.” Read and Loewenstein, “Diversification Bias: Explaining the Discrepancy in Variety Seeking Between Combined and Separated Choices,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied
1, no. 1 (1995): 34–49.