Wine expertise: perceptual learning in the chemical senses

Researchers have long been interested in the kinds of perceptual learning that take place in those who acquire wine expertise. However, progress in this field has been hampered by differing accounts of what, exactly, counts as expertise, not to mention the exact nature of any learning taking place. That said, the majority of studies published to date have tended to document more pronounced changes in conceptual knowledge structures than in terms of enhanced smell or taste sensitivity per se. Converging neuroimaging research from studies where experts and non-experts taste/evaluate wine in the brain scanner has also highlighted changes in neural activation in those brain areas consistent with enhanced conceptual/synthetic analysis in wine experts. Given the impressive effects that have been demonstrated elsewhere in the literature on perceptual learning, several reasons as to why similar effects have typically not been widely observed in the case of wine expertise are briefly discussed: Relevant factors here likely include everything from the distinctly suboptimal environment for sensory analysis in the brain scanner, through to the mismatch between the kinds of tasks/training typically involved in the acquisition of wine expertise, and the type of perceptual threshold testing normally used to assess the consequences of perceptual learning