How fast are your tastebuds?
A. 13-15 milliseconds
B. 1-2 centiseconds
C. 1.5-4.0 millseconds
D. 30-35 milliseconds
C.
The human body can taste faster than it can see, touch, or hear. According to Dr. Hildegarde Heymann, Professor and Enologist in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California at Davis, taste perception is swift because the tongue and mouth (assisted by the nose) are the body’s primary defenses against poison. Here’s how fast perception occurs after initial stimulation, as measured in thousandths of a second, for our four main senses:
- Taste: 1.5 – 4.0 milliseconds
- Touch: 2.4 – 8.9 milliseconds
- Vision: 13 – 45 milliseconds
- Hearing: 13 – 22 milliseconds
