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Across sensory systems, several stimulus collative characteristics, including intensity, novelty, complexity and perceived dangerousness, are known to elicit high levels of physiological and psychological arousal. It has become apparent that food rejections by both children and adults are frequently linked to such arousal-inducing characteristics. This paper examines how arousal and arousability are important elements in responding to stimuli generally, but specifically to foods, ultimately influencing food preferences and choices. It is clear that responses to sensory properties are subject not just to variations in perceptual sensitivity due to genetics or experience-as in the case of widely rejected qualities such as bitterness or pungency-but also to the arousal potential of those stimuli. Moreover, this is linked to various enduring aspects of personality, suggesting that the impact of arousal on food choices is merely one aspect of a more general sensory sensitivity. The impact of diet on various health outcomes underlines the importance of understanding the relationship of arousal to food choices. This article is part of the theme issue 'Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience'.

Sensory product characterisation by consumers is increasingly supplemented by measurement of emotional associations. However, studies that link products' sensory perception and emotional associations are still scarce. Five consumer studies were conducted using cashew nuts, peanuts, chocolate, fruit and processed tomatoes as the product categories. Consumers (n = 685) completed check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions to obtain sensory product perceptions and associations with emotion words. The latter were conceptualised and interpreted through a circumplex emotion model spanned by the dimensions of valence (pleasure to displeasure) and arousal (activation to deactivation). Through regression analysis, sensory terms were mapped to the circumplex model to represent statistical linkages with emotion words. Within a were interpretable. The most notable finding was the highly study-specific nature of the linkages, which was mainly attributed to the influence of product category. Methodological choices may also have been partly responsible for the differences. Three studies used a general emotion vocabulary (EsSense Profile®) and an identical number of sensory terms (n = 39). The less complete coverage of the emotional circumplex and the presence of synonymous sensory terms could have diminished the ability to interpret the results. Conversely, two studies used fewer emotion words and sensory terms and these, furthermore, were purposefully selected for the focal sets of samples. The linkages in these latter studies were more interpretable and this could suggest that customised vocabularies of modest length may be desirable when seeking to establish linkages between emotional associations and sensory characteristics of food/beverage stimuli. Purposeful inclusion of emotion words that fully span the circumplex emotion model may also be desirable. Overall, the research represents a new method for establishing linkages between the sensory properties and emotional association to food and beverage products., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

• The role of individual differences in perceived complexity was investigated. • Alcohol content was not found to be sufficient to determine complexity. • Perceived complexity is associated with consumer familiarity with product category. • Perceived complexity modulates affective responses to cocktails. • Clusters differing in complexity ratings do not differ in sensory responses. Complexity is a relevant dimension in the development of products preferences and acceptability because of its relationship with hedonic appreciation. The present study aimed to investigate the individual differences in the relationships between product complexity in alcoholic cocktails to liking and to specific sensory properties, situational appropriateness and emotional responses. Six alcoholic cocktails, all of them composed by a common bitter ingredient were selected to represent different complexity levels based on alcohol content, number of ingredients and differences in sensory properties. Products were evaluated by a consumer panel using consumer-led product specific questionnaires. At panel level, the perceived complexity was found to be aligned with the hypothesized range of complexity. When two clusters of consumers based on individual differences in complexity ratings were considered, we observed different relationships between complexity and liking as compared to panel level. Furthermore, the sensory, emotional and situational appropriateness drivers of complexity differed in the two clusters. These data showed that perceived complexity is a multi-dimensional construct in which individuals showing high familiarity with cocktails based on bitter are found to have a very high variation in complexity perception due to a difference in conceptualization of this product dimension compared to individuals with a lower familiarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] A multistep approach (EmoSemio) to measuring emotional responses associated to a specific product category is developed. [•] Using full sentences instead of adjectives helps to reduce ambiguity in emotion questionnaires. [•] Emotional measures provide increased product differentiation compared to the hedonic responses. [•] Sensory properties elicit emotions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The relationship between disgust sensitivity and BMI differs in obese and non-obese. • Restrained eating mediates disgust sensitivity in the prediction of BMI in non-obese. • BMI acts as partial mediator of disgust sensitivity in predicting restrained eating. • Sensitivity to disgust is associated with lower preference for high-fat dairy products. • No relationship was found between PROP status and BMI in either obese or non-obese. Core disgust is a negative emotion, comprised of disgust in response to food, animals, and from the body itself (and its products). Individual differences exist in the level to which people experience the emotion of core disgust. Sensitivity to disgust has been associated negatively with Body Mass Index (BMI) in overweight and obese people, and to eating disorders independently from BMI. This study investigates the relationship between disgust sensitivity and BMI by examining data from the Italian Taste Project (n = 2317). We hypothesized that the relationship between disgust sensitivity and BMI, after accounting for age and gender, may be mediated by other factors, such as 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) sensitivity or eating restraint, and that this relationship might differ in non-obese and obese individuals. Results showed that the relationship between sensitivity to disgust and food behaviors is complex and differs between obese and non-obese people. Two mediation models were considered. In the first case restrained eating acted as a mediator of disgust sensitivity in the prediction of BMI, while in the second one BMI acted only as a partial mediator of disgust sensitivity in the prediction of restrained eating. This suggests that heightened sensitivity to core disgust may be associated with a heightened sensitivity to self-disgust, motivating restrained eating behaviors when BMI is higher, but only in non-obese individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pre-adolescents are able to use specific emojis to describe how they feel about recalled foods. • Emoji selection varied across foods elicited by different eating contexts. • Gender and age affect the frequency of emoji selection across eating contexts. • Younger pre-adolescents (aged 9–11) tend to select more food-related emojis than older. Emojis were suggested for children to be used to measure food-elicited emotions. The present study was aimed to explore the appropriateness of emojis to describe pre-adolescents' emotions elicited by foods recalled in relation to different evoked eating contexts and to explore related age- and gender differences. Fifty-five boys and forty-one girls aged 9–13 participated to the study. First, subjects were asked to recall, by means of an open-ended question, the foods they had in specific eating contexts: "Most liked food" and "Most disliked food", "Breakfast", "Dinner", "Snack", "Birthday" and "Novel food". Then, they were asked to select the emojis appropriate to describe their feelings for the context-related foods by selecting from a list of 92 facial emojis (CATA method). Emojis selected by more than 20% of children in at least one eating context qualified as food-related. In total, 46 emojis resulted as appropriate to describe emotions in different eating contexts. Pre-adolescents used mainly positive emojis, except for the context "Most disliked food", where mainly negative emojis were used. Most food-related emojis resulted from "Most liked food" and "Most disliked food", but the context "Birthday" also added some context-specific emojis. The number of selected emojis varied across evoked eating contexts eliciting different foods. Age and gender significantly affected emoji selection across and within foods elicited by varied eating contexts, with girls and 9–11-year-old subjects selecting some emojis more frequently across all contexts, but also within contexts. The approach used in the present study has the potential to be used for the development of a food-related emotion measurement tool for pre-adolescents. Future research aimed at interpreting the meaning of facial emojis is needed and should consider age- and gender differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing research has shown that emoji can be used by children to discriminate food products, but it is unclear if they express emotions and how they are linked to emotional words. Little is known about how children interpret emoji in terms of their emotional meaning in the context of food. This study aimed at investigating the emotional meaning of emoji used to describe food experiences in 9–13-year-old pre-adolescents and to measure related age and gender differences. The meaning of 46 emoji used to describe food experience was explored by: mapping emoji according to similarities and differences in their emotional meaning using the projective mapping technique, and linking emoji with emotion words using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) format. The two tasks gave consistent results and showed that emoji were discriminated along the valence (positive vs. negative) and power (dominant vs. submissive) dimension, and to a lower extent along the arousal dimension (high vs. low activation). In general, negative emoji had more distinct meanings than positive emoji in both studies, but differences in nuances of meaning were found also among positive emoji. Girls and older pre-adolescents (12–13 years old (y.o.)) discriminated positive emoji slightly better than boys and younger pre-adolescents (9–11 y.o.). This suggests that girls and older pre-adolescents may be higher in emotional granularity (the ability to experience and discriminate emotions), particularly of positive emotions. The results of the present work can be used for the development of an emoji-based tool to measure emotions elicited by foods in pre-adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Emotional and context product associations were moderated by liking. • Clusters differing in cocktail preference did not differ in sensory associations. • Sensory-drivers of emotions and contexts differed among consumer segments. • A multidimensional study allowed a better understanding of consumer behavior. This study aimed to further the development and application of the Global profile approach, by (1) extending it to another product category, alcoholic cocktails; (2) investigating the relationship between sensory-emotions-context appropriateness in consumers differing for liking patterns; and (3) integrating the approach beyond product differentiation to consumer differentiation, thus improving and gaining a further insight into differences among consumers (consumer characterization). This was done taking into account consumer differences in oral responsiveness, personality traits, familiarity, explicit responses to products and implicit attitudes towards brand. Six alcoholic bitter-based cocktail samples were rated for liking, sensory properties, emotions and context appropriateness. Three clusters with different liking patterns for alcoholic cocktails were identified: 'Fruit-bitter lovers', 'New-bitter lovers' and 'Classic-bitter lovers. Very small differences in sensory evaluation were found between the three clusters, while instead large differences were found for emotions and, to a lesser extent, for context appropriateness. Furthermore, the relationships among emotions, contexts and sensory properties were different in the three clusters. Clusters differed partly by gender, personality traits and alcohol consumption. A higher percentage of females was found in 'Fruit-bitter lovers'; these consumers were also characterized by a higher Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) scores and a lower level of alcohol consumption. 'New-bitter lovers' liked cocktails with very different sensory characteristics who were associated with specific contexts of consumption. These consumers were less involved with cocktails than the other clusters. 'Classic-bitter lovers' cluster liked a broader variety of cocktails and also showed a more implicit positive attitude towards the bitter ingredient brand and a higher familiarity for cocktails in general. The information collected through this multidimensional approach will allow a better understanding of the differences in liking patterns among different groups of cocktail consumers and may be used to improve strategies for product innovation and consumer targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Sensory drivers of product-elicited emotions were established in 4 consumer studies. • And compared within and across consumer segments with different preference patterns. • Differences between segments in the emotional product associations were moderated by liking. • Segments were more similar in their sensory product characterisations than emotional associations. • Sensory-emotion linkages both dependent and independent from liking patterns were established. The important role of emotions in consumers' food-related decisions motivate ongoing research in this domain, and in the present research attention was directed to an area that remains under-investigated: identifying sensory drivers of product-elicited emotions. Assuming that product-elicited emotions depend on the value individuals attach to the sensory characteristics of products, liking was expected to moderate the sensory drivers of emotions. This motivated an exploration of differences in the emotional associations of consumer groups with different preference patterns, as well as the sensory drivers of product-elicited emotions. Across four studies (123–192 consumers per study), using different product categories, emotion questionnaire variants and consumer populations, support for three hypotheses was established: i) consumers with different preference patterns did not largely differ in how they described the sensory characteristics of products, but they differed in their emotional associations, and differences between segments with different liking patterns were larger for emotional product associations than for sensory product perceptions (H1), ii) differences in the emotional associations depended on the size of the difference in liking between the two groups, although some differences in the emotional associations of samples with similar liking scores were also established (H2), and iii) many of the sensory drivers of emotions differed between consumer segments with different preference patterns (H3). The latter has not previously been demonstrated in this level of detail and supports the growing recognition of segmentation analysis in product-focused consumer research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An emoji-based self-report questionnaire with a food-specific emoji list was developed. • 17 emoji pairs were associated with specific semantic and dimensional meanings. • Two suggested response formats are suggested: CATA questionnaire and rating scale. • The questionnaire can be used to study preadolescents' emotions elicited by foods. • It offers a wide application especially in product development and/or sensory testing. Emoji evolved as an attractive instrument to measure emotions in preadolescents due to their potential to express a wide range of emotions. However, the emotional meaning of emoji can be ambiguous and is often not universal across age groups, which has not been considered when developing emoji questionnaires. Hence, this research aimed to develop an emoji-based self-report measurement tool to measure emotional responses to food products in preadolescents. In total, 5 studies were conducted, and 454 preadolescents (aged 9–13 years) participated to develop the tool. First, preadolescents selected food-related emoji (Study 1, n = 96), then they evaluated their dimensional emotional meaning using projective mapping (Study 2, n = 162). They then evaluated the linguistic semantic meaning by describing emoji with emotion words (Check-All-That-Apply) (Study 3, n = 92) and vice versa (Study 4, n = 85). Finally, one-on-one interviews using a modified version of the Repertory Grid Method were conducted to investigate emoji more in depth (Study 5, n = 19). The findings resulted in 17 emoji pairs associated with specific linguistic semantic and dimensional (valence, power, and arousal) meanings. Based on this, we developed an emoji-based self-report measurement tool to measure emotions in response to food products with two suggested response formats, the CATA Emoji Pair Questionnaire and the Emoji Pair Rating Scale. Future research will test the discriminative ability of this tool over a wide range of food products. The questionnaire will allow for a better understanding of preadolescents' affective responses to food and could be used in food innovation targeted at preadolescents to promote healthier food behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Attentional bias for vegetables is negatively associated with acceptability • Attentional bias was higher for vegetables with critical sensory properties • PROP supertasters showed higher reactions times for vegetables than PROP non-tasters • Neophobia was not associated with a higher attentional bias toward vegetables • Implicit and explicit methods contribute to better understand vegetable acceptability Understanding why many individuals dislike vegetables is relevant to develop effective strategies to change food behaviors promoting healthier choices. The influences of sensory properties in the development of food preferences are well known. Attention as well may play a role in this process. Indeed, attention enhances information processing of emotionally salient objects or events by selecting them from the environmental context in which they are embedded. This study was aimed at investigating the relationship between acceptability of vegetables, food neophobia and taste responsiveness (measured as responsiveness to 6-n- propylthiouracil-PROP) and the attentive responses to vegetables that differ in sensory properties. 120 adults (20–24 years old, 74.2% women) were recruited and characterized for Food Neophobia and PROP responsiveness. To assess the interferences between emotional and attentional processes a food version of the Emotional Stroop Task was used. Attentional bias was measured through reaction times (RTs) to word stimuli, which included 16 vegetables characterized by generally appealing (e.g. 'sweetness', 'mildness') or unappealing (e.g. 'bitterness', 'astringency') sensory properties, and 16 emotionally neutral objects presented as control. A clear association between vegetable liking scores and sensory properties was found in this study, confirming the categorization of appealing and unappealing vegetables. Furthermore, results showed significantly higher RTs for vegetables than for neutral objects, demonstrating that vegetables were more emotionally salient than objects. Furthermore, the interference scores, computed as the differences between average RTs to unappealing/appealing vegetable words and average RTs to neutral words, for vegetables with unappealing sensory properties were higher than those for vegetables characterized by appealing sensory properties, indicating a greater attentional bias for unappealing vegetables. A strong inverse correlation between liking scores and RTs (r = -0.83) was found. No effect of food neophobia and PROP status was found on interferences scores, while PROP supertasters showed higher RTs for vegetables in general. The study showed that attention is particularly grabbed by vegetables with unappealing sensory properties, thus indicating that attention play a role in vegetable acceptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new approach to evaluate new-market disruptive innovations is presented. • LUD framework integrates the product evaluation during the learning stage, after repeated exposure, and after deprivation. • It enables the characterization of the innovation learning process, the measurement of perceived product performance, and the assessment of user emotional experience. • It enables the assessment of the potential of adoption of new-market disruptive innovations. • Evolution of liking and emotions are identified as internal benchmarks. Innovation can be driven by optimization and improvement through existing product categories and actual market conditions (e.g., sustaining or incremental innovation). However, it can also be driven by a willingness to change the market, namely, the so-called disruptive innovation. While many approaches for the consumer evaluation of incremental and low-end disruptive innovations are available, tools for assessing the product performance and users' perception and adoption of new-market disruptive innovations are still lacking. The LUD (Learning-Use-Deprivation) framework is a consumer home use test protocol consisting of three stages of time-based product evaluation, used to estimate users' adoption of a new-market disruptive innovation. The latter is characterized by no clear market reference to compare with (no benchmark) and difficulty in the selection of a consumer target group (as non-consumers are generally targeted). Hence, traditional approaches to evaluation are inadequate and sometimes inappropriate. The LUD framework aims to overcome the limitations of the actual methods in assessing user perception, including sensory, functional, and affective (liking and emotions) aspects, by proposing a repeated exposure (learning and use stages) test, which also includes the evaluation of the product one week after the end of the exposure period (deprivation stage). The present paper describes the LUD approach and its application to a specific cosmetic industry case, a new stick shampoo, to test the effectiveness of the selected metrics (liking, emotions, learning measures, and sensory and functional properties) and to gauge the product's performance and validate its launch in the market. The approach has been found to be effective in testing a potential disruptive innovation, and it could be extended to other product categories (including food), providing information that can be used to validate the product or further optimize it. This information can also be used for communication and marketing purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]