learn the taste of words

This will be a crumb of comfort to linguistic relativists: "labels can trick the brain into a different kind of perception ... in other words, it helps to say on the label that the chardonnay smells of melon, honey and pear blossom. The researchers have yet to sort out whether labels trigger an imagined smell, or simply affect the way the brain makes sense of an odour.."
It's not such a surprise really; it's part of the art of spin and why it does actually work. Leaders have been using it for centuries. However, we should be wary: influence does not equal causality. There is in fact a dialogical relationship between perception and labelling on the one hand and the reality on the other.
What it does mean also is that there is probably reason tho think that words in liturgy do matter, and that doing the word thing well is part of preparation, ditto with other signals that are not word based, though that does go way beyond the evidence presented here.

It does not provide evidence that the words we use fully or mainly condition our perceptions: if that were the case we would never be able to have new experiences or to invent new words. Linguistic determinism vastly overstates the power of words. However, this study appears to indicate that we can't, either, go to the opposite extreme and say that words and symbols have no influence at all.
Derrida is wrong if he insisted that there is only the signifier; however, I suspect he wasn't really saying that in a linguistic determinist way. I have yet to read the bloke so I will happily wait to be indformed by comments.
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Scientists learn the taste of words: