Haptic perception: touch, not taste

The standard

Trigeminal perception gathers the stimuli that report not taste but touch, temperature and irritation. What matters is the pathway of conduction, not the place in the mouth.

Criteria

• The stimuli rest on touch and temperature, not on taste
• They are conveyed through tactile and irritation-sensitive nerve pathways
• They can be described separately from the basic tastes

Distinction

Haptic perception ≠ taste: taste reports sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, haptic perception reports touch and irritation. Haptic perception ≠ aroma: aroma arises through the sense of smell, texture through the sense of touch. Trigeminal perception thus assigns mouthfeel a channel of its own.