Temporal dissociation of taste mixture components

Reaction times to salty and bitter tastes as single stimuliand in mixture were measured using response time deadlines rangingfrom 300 to 2500 ms. Salty reaction times were the same whethersalty was in mixture with bitter or a single stimulus, and theywere always shorter than bitter reaction times. Reaction timeto bitter was slower in mixture with salty than as a singletaste. Salty, alone and in mixture, was correctly identifiedon {small tilde}80% of the trials within 500 ms while correctbitter identifications did not reach similar levels until 1000ms. Bitter in mixture with salty never reached that level ofcorrect responding and correct responses actually decreasedslightly at response time deadlines of 2500 ms. The resultsshow that differences in taste onset latency are great enoughto allow identification of single tastes in mixtures.