EDITORIAL-DETAILS (JFN)
Linda Bartoshuk
Professor
University of Florida
USA
Biography
Linda Bartoshuk, Bushnell Professor at the University of Florida, is Director of Human Research for the UF Center for Smell and Taste. She is past president of EPA, Divisions 1 and 6 of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Association for Chemoreception Sciences. She has been elected to the Society of Experimental Psychologists, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Bartoshuk and her students have studied genetic variation in taste as well as patients with taste disorders (using anesthesia to simulate these disorders in normal controls). Older psychophysical methods (category and VAS) were not designed to compare different groups of individuals; Bartoshuk and her students needed such comparisons (e.g., patients vs controls) and so developed new sensory and hedonic scaling tools that could provide them. Most recently, Bartoshuk has collaborated with colleagues in horticulture to increase the palatability of fruits and vegetables. That work serendipitously led to a new way to sweeten foods/beverages that may reduce dependence on sugar and artificial sweeteners.
Research Interest
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