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Half Baked


Imagining Flavors

Benjamin Young

(University of Nevada, Reno) 

DATE:
4.30 pm (Milan Time) February 26, 2026​

LOCATION:
Online, ZOOM

REGISTER HERE:
link

 
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ABSTRACT. Our ability to cognitively conjuring up smells is rather modest. Olfactory mental imagery is challenging to volitionally generate, the capacities prevalence across the population is low, and the imaginary smell representations are less phenomenologically robust than those of other modalities. However, this is all relative to orthonasal olfactory imagery (smells perceived from the front of the nose). Contrastively, research on olfactory imagery including flavor perception shows a higher prevalence and robustness across the population. The talk explores: why we might be better at imagining flavors, the representational format of flavor imagery, and the possible role of language in mediating flavor imagery across cultures. 

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