AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The external chemical senses are usually divided into taste, or gustation (for dissolved chemicals that inform about the palatability of food), and smell, or olfaction (for airborne chemicals that inform about events at a distance).

Detailed explanation-2: -Taste (gustation) and smell (olfaction) are called chemical senses because both have sensory receptors that respond to molecules in the food we eat or in the air we breathe. There is a pronounced interaction between our chemical senses.

Detailed explanation-3: -Your sense of smell-like your sense of taste-is part of your chemosensory system, or the chemical senses. Your ability to smell comes from specialized sensory cells, called olfactory sensory neurons, which are found in a small patch of tissue high inside the nose. These cells connect directly to the brain.

Detailed explanation-4: -Whenever a detectable molecule, or odorant, attaches to an olfactory receptor, it generates a tiny electrical impulse. As these currents enter the complex network of the brain, it can quickly (sometimes within just two or three synapses, in a tenth of a second) recognize the odor.

Detailed explanation-5: -Smell = Olfaction-olfactory system Taste = Gustation-gustatory system-called “chemical” senses because their function is to monitor the chemical content of the environment.