American scientists have conducted a series of experiments in order to find the conditions in which people better memorize the taste of tea without using words to describe the tea. Participants of the study needed to blindly taste a control set of teas and evaluate all the teas according to the given parameters. And then, after a short pause, to blindly taste an expanded set ofteas (the control set of teas + an equal number of new teas). And to indicate for each tea weather it was present in the control set.
It turned out that the recognition of teas depends on the criteria by which they were evaluated during the first tasting. There were three options for such criteria. The first criterion was bitterness — the participants were to rate each tea on a scale of 0 to 10 based on how bitter the tea was. The second criterion was the commercial value of the drink — the participants were to imagine that they would need to trade the tea, and rate a selection of teas based on how well they think each one would sell. The third criterion was danger. Participants were asked to imagine that all tea leaves naturally contain a certain amount of poison, and this poison has a flavor marker. And that during the production of tea the poison becomes harmless, but its taste remains. Accordingly, each ofthe tasted teas was to be rated based on the degree of “poisonousness”.
So. It turned out that the worst recognition of teas was in the situation when people rated teas for their bitterness. Survival condition (teas being rated for poison) showed a much better result. And the best recognition of tea taste(only by a small margin) was demonstrated by the marketing condition, when teas were rated for their commercial value.
This once again demonstrates a very slight superiority of commercialism over the fear of death.