CULTURE, PERCEPTION AND THE ENVIRONMENT - THE ROLE OF CHEMOSENSORY PERCEPTION

The perception of plant derived natural products by humans is a theore tically and practically relevant interface of botany/phytochemistry an d the cultural sciences. This paper offers a theoretical overview of t he field and points to the shortcomings in our knowledge about this to pic. It thus focuses on the interpretation of chemosensory signals by a culture and on the way in which this sensation is cognitively struct ured and named, on the hedonic evaluation of particular sensations as good and bad and on the assignment of use value to particular chemosen sory inputs. Simultaneously it provides the frame of reference for the four subsequent papers in this series.