Effects of temperature on the perceived sweetness of sucrose.

The sweetness of sucrose depends on the temperature as well as the concentration of a solution. The main effect is that relatively low concentrations gain sweetness as temperature increases. This effect diminishes with progressively higher concentration and finally becomes negligible at about 0.5 M. At this concentration the various functions that relate perceived sweetness to concentration for various temperatures converge. The mechanism of the taste-temperature interaction is speculative, but the interaction is large enough to be of practical interest in the perception of common foods and beverages as well as a variable to be strictly controlled in taste experiments. An examination of method of tasting showed that swallowing stimuli did not substantially increase perceived sweetness.