Facial disgust in response to touches, smells, and tastes.

Disgust serves to defend the body from the entry of toxins and disease. Central to this function is a strong relationship with the proximate senses of smell, taste, and touch. Theory suggests that distinct and reflexive facial movements should be evoked by gustatory and olfactory disgusts, serving to impede bodily entry. While this hypothesis has received some support from facial recognition studies, whether smell and taste disgusts actually produce distinct facial responses, is unknown. Moreover, there has been no assessment of the facial response evoked by contact with disgusting objects. To address these issues, this study compared facial responses to touch, smell, and taste disgusts. Sixty-four participants were asked to touch, smell, and taste disgust-evoking and neutral control stimuli, and rate them on disgust, on two occasions-first, while they were video recorded and second, with facial electromyography (EMG) applied (measuring