Faltastes

Faltastes is a fictional concept used in gastronomy-themed speculative fiction and in game design to describe a perceptual phenomenon in tasting events. It refers to situations where a participant reports experiencing flavors that are not physically present in the dish, driven by contextual cues, expectations, or narrative framing rather than the actual ingredients. In such cases, memory, mood, and sensory priming can influence judgments, creating a mismatch between expectation and reality.

Origin and usage: The term faltastes is a neologism created within contemporary speculative fiction and culinary theory discussions; it lacks a basis in established nutrition science. It is primarily employed as a narrative or design tool to explore how language, storytelling, and environment shape sensory experience. In fiction, faltastes can serve to illustrate cultural notions of taste, illusion, or deception. In tabletop and video games, faltastes may function as a mechanic in tasting challenges, where players must infer missing flavors based on hints, aromas, or implied ingredients rather than direct tasting.

Relationship to real concepts: Faltastes bears relation to cognitive biases and sensory illusions studied in psychology and sensory science, such as expectation effects, priming, and crossmodal associations. It is not a measure of actual chemical tasting but a conceptual device to discuss perception and subjectivity.

See also: cognitive bias, sensory illusion, top-down processing, tasting.