system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is acquiring a taste for something like black coffee a physical change, a psychological change, or a combination of both?
gpt
The psychological and physical (i.e. biological) aspects are interdependent: it's a combination of both. However, as in most psychological changes, they are a consequence of changes in the underlying neurobiology (this also implies that a behavioral change will effect changes on neurobiological function, leading to reinforced psychological changes). The establishment of neural connections between your gustatory cortex and limbic system is necessary for the acquisition of a taste. These are specific for the flavor of black coffee: a combination of mostly bitter flavors that get picked up by taste buds connected to nerves that normally carry information regarding noxious elements in the ingested food. The idea is that your brain will rewire the connections for the set of flavors associated to black coffee, likely by making the prefrontal cortex override the instinctive rejection of coffee's bitterness (the prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain where behavior and personality are controlled), thus promoting its association with pleasure circuits in the brain, usually dependent on serotoninergic neurotransmission.