Ever tried beetroot custard? Probably not, but your brain can imagine how it might taste by reactivating old memories in a new pattern.
Helen Barron and her colleagues at University College London and Oxford University wondered if our brains combine existing memories to help us decide whether to try something new.
So the team used an fMRI scanner to look at the brains of 19 volunteers who were asked to remember specific foods they had tried.
Each volunteer was then given a menu of 13 unusual food combinations – including beetroot custard, tea jelly, and coffee yoghurt – and asked to imagine how good or bad they would taste, and whether or not they would eat them.
"Tea jelly was popular," says Barron. "Beetroot custard not so much."
When each volunteer imagined a new combination, they showed brain activity associated with each of the known ingredients at the same time. It is the first evidence to suggest that we use memory combination to make decisions, says Barron.
Journal reference: Nature Neuroscience, doi: 10.1038/nn.3515
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