ELI5; how does your tongue know what things taste like prior to licking it. Before licking something, you can already taste and feel the texture

Question

ELI5; how does your tongue know what things taste like prior to licking it. Before licking something, you can already taste and feel the texture

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Answer 1

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Answer 2

To the extent that this is true, a big part of it is that taste is largely smell. You have taste buds on your tongue for sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami flavours but your nose can sense hundreds of different substances.

Answer 3

Taste is a figment of the imagination. It doesn’t actually exist outside your brain. You put your tongue on stuff, sense the chemicals on it, and your brain creates a particular feeling to help you remember that thing you put in your mouth. The feeling isn’t real, and it doesn’t come from the item being tasted, it’s all in your head. Because of that, your brain can make the feeling without any real input, allowing you to taste in anticipation of that taste.