What can we learn from the Jelly Belly experiment?

The Jelly Belly experiment which included 12 different flavours of Jelly Belly's gave us an insight on how well people's knowledge are on identifying different flavours. We had both independet variables which were in group A to have the test subject blind folded and given a Jelly Belly to taste and identify the flavour. Then we also had different test subjects in group B which were alloud to see the Jelly Belly's and taste them. From the results more people got the correct flavours in group B due to that they could see the color of the Jelly Belly which helped them justify the flavour. For example even before tasting the Jelly Belly and you see that the color is yellow you can already make a hasty generalization that it is going to be lemon. The same with the colors green which can be apple or pear, as to when you are blind folded you have a harder time identifying it because you might be stuck between two flavours and don't have the chance to see it to help you justify the flavour.

There were many factors involved including if prior knowledge of flavour influence taste. People in different cultures tend to eat different types of food so they might be better in identifying certain flavours which other cultures might not recognize and vice versa. Also people who eat allot of fruit will most likely get most of the Jelly Belly's correct since more than half are fruit flavours, their experience in the taste of fruits are better than people who don't eat fruits as often because they have not had the experience to taste different degrees of flavours for example in apple. A person who often eats apple can taste the difference between a good apple and a bad apple.

Other factors such as overhearing neighbours can influence their decision aswel as the Jelly Belly itself, for exmaple after eating a strong flavoured Jelly Belly like Cappucino can influence the taste of the next Jelly Belly which might be apple. Both flavours mix creating an odd flavour which may be hard to identify. Also to take into consideration is if the person has experience in eating Jelly Belly's which makes it allot more easier for them to identify the flavour. For example Pina Colada, people who havn't eaten Jelly Belly's before are very unlikely to get it correct because it is an unnusual taste, since it has both pineapple and coconut in it. This is also shown in the results that almost nobody got it correct. What we have learned from the experiment is that there are definetly allot of factors to be taken into consideration which also applies to most scientific experiments.