Intervention conditions
upper gastrointestinal tract
BLIND
In the present study, because the independent variable was taste, it was impossible to blind participants to condition and remove the possibility of a placebo or nocebo effect. To mitigate this, we included a sweet and a water condition which we expected individuals to perceive as ergogenic and neutral, respectively. Then, before the experimental trial, participants completed a questionnaire determining current perceptions regarding how the different tastes would influence neuromuscular function. While not removing the influence of any placebo or nocebo effect on the unpleasant tastes, these steps enabled the extent of a placebo or nocebo effect to be measured and compared to control conditions.During the experiment, all solutions were mouth rinsed before being ingested. Ingestion was undertaken, because many of the bitter-specific taste receptors are located on the posterior tongue and upper gastrointestinal tract (Behrens et al. All conditions were presented in red 50 ml plastic containers at room temperature. Solutions were served as 25 ml except the ‘no solution’ condition which was a 25 g mass. In the no solution condition, the container was raised to the mouth to replicate the movement that occurred in the other conditions. The sweet condition was 14% artificial sweetener (Cottees Apple and Raspberry Cordial, Schweppes; Melbourne, Australia). The bitter condition was a 2 mM quinine hydrochloride dihydrate solution (Sigma-Aldrich; Missouri, USA) to match the concentration used in previous research (Gam et al. 