Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogel bomb here with a classic episode from
Speaker 1: the podcast archives. Today's question has been taken both scientifically
Speaker 1: and philosophically. Why can't we taste our own tongues? Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. It may seem like
Speaker 1: a ridiculous question at first, but it's actually a mind bender.
Speaker 1: Why can't you taste your tongue? A thirteenth century Indian
Speaker 1: mystic Danna sch war even used it in contemplation on
Speaker 1: the very nature of being. Along with its fellow sense
Speaker 1: organs of eyes, ears, nose, and skin, the tongue serves
Speaker 1: as one of the primary ways we experience the world
Speaker 1: and form a working model of it. The same riddle
Speaker 1: is frequently applied to the eye. Though we can certainly
Speaker 1: see our own eyes and reflections, we can feel our
Speaker 1: own skin, though, of course, the tip of your left
Speaker 1: index finger can't touch itself and the ear cannot hear itself,
Speaker 1: But either does it make a sound. The tongue, however,
Speaker 1: looks in our mouth like a layered beast, flip flopping
Speaker 1: its way through our daily conversations, tasting our food and
Speaker 1: occasionally dislodging a little bit of it from our teeth.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we're more inclined to ponder the mystery of the
Speaker 1: tongue due to its hidden nature or the many lingering
Speaker 1: myths regarding its functionality. Tongue rolling, for instance, is not
Speaker 1: the simple genetic trait that we often chalk it up
Speaker 1: to be. Nor is the tongue our strongest muscle, and
Speaker 1: while we're at it, it's a collection of muscles. Neither
Speaker 1: is the tongue laid out like a simple map with
Speaker 1: different zones for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest misconceptions about the tongue, however, is that it
Speaker 1: rules alone in its governance of flavor sensations. The receptor
Speaker 1: cells in our taste buds certainly carry out the chemical
Speaker 1: sensation of taste, but they're located on the bumpy external
Speaker 1: surface of our tongue. They're not able to turn those
Speaker 1: powers inward on themselves. They collect tactile and thermal details
Speaker 1: about any morsel that enters their domain. But the brain
Speaker 1: also depends upon your sense of smell to interpret flavor,
Speaker 1: So the tongue is not alone in its taste mission.
Speaker 1: Your tongue can taste food or the remnants of food
Speaker 1: in your mouth. Accidentally bite your tongue and you can
Speaker 1: taste the blood trickling out of its own wound. Fun fact,
Speaker 1: all that saliva and those blood vessels in your mouth
Speaker 1: seem to allow for quick healing. You can also taste
Speaker 1: your own saliva. And who hasn't had a bad taste
Speaker 1: in their mouth, whether from some aggressive garlic or an
Speaker 1: underlying medical condition. And yes, lovebirds, you can pick up
Speaker 1: on all these sensations during an open mouth kiss, but
Speaker 1: you'll still find yourself at pains to taste an actual
Speaker 1: living tongue. Psychologists also talk about the conception of habituation,
Speaker 1: or the idea that if a stimulus is presented often
Speaker 1: enough or for long enough, we learn to ignore it.
Speaker 1: Like that scent you sprits on before you leave the
Speaker 1: house that everyone but you can still smell later on
Speaker 1: in the day. The inability to taste our tongues could
Speaker 1: be an example of that phenomenon. In any case, we
Speaker 1: may not be able to taste our tongues for several reasons,
Speaker 1: but don't let that stand in the way of a
Speaker 1: little mystic naval gazing. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article why Can't You Taste your Tongue on how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com written by Robert Lamb. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.