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Deciding what to eat often implies a conflict between immediate goals (I need to eat, ideally something enjoyable) and long-term goals (I need to be healthy), particularly when choosing between foods superior on a hedonic dimension (referred to as vices) and foods superior on an utilitarian dimension (referred to as virtues). One sort of intervention that could potentially shift balance between short-term and long-term consequences is instructed mental simulation. Mental simulations could be characterised as images or can be embodied, as a complete experience, including body sensations, feelings and images. We examine systematic differences in two types of instructed mental simulation: imagining the moment of consumption (process) and post-consumption (outcome), and emphasise the importance of product type (vice, virtue) on its effect on wanting and choice. In a within-subject experiment, 76 participants were allocated to the two mental simulation conditions (happening in different sessions) and imagined consuming or having consumed a vice and a virtue product. After imagining each product, the participants rated their level of wanting and indicated the product they preferred: the vice or the virtue one. The results showed that imagining the consumption of the vice product or the post-consumption of the virtue product increased the rate of wanting for the correspondent product, the same pattern was found for preferences. Furthermore, results showed that health orientation moderated the effect of mental simulation on wanting and choice. Further knowledge in different simulation types may have important implications for understanding how we represent food in our mind and help with the development of effective communicational interventions that nudge people towards healthier food choices.

The packaging of a product is a key element in the communication between producers and consumers, so getting the consumer to interpret the packaging visual signs in the desired way is crucial to be successful in the marketplace. However, this is not easy as images can be ambiguous and may be interpreted in different ways. For example, depicting an icon of fire on the front of a bag of nuts may lead the consumer to interpret either that the nuts are spicy or that the nuts have been roasted. This paper addresses this problem and, using this case as an example, assesses if the interpretation of a fire icon (spicy vs roasted) can be modulated by manipulating its shape (angular vs rounded). 66 participants carried out an experiment which results show that there is a crossmodal correspondence between spiciness and pointy shapes and that this association can be used to modulate sensory expectations: in a speeded classification task, the bags of nuts depicting pointy fire icons were categorised more quickly as being spicy than as being roasted, while the opposite was true for the bags of nuts displaying rounded fire icons. In addition, the results of a mediation analysis suggest that this effect occurs indirectly through affective appraisal: the pointy fire icons were judged as being more aggressive than the rounded fire icons, which in turn raised spiciness expectations. These findings contribute to the research on crossmodal correspondences and semiotics by showing that the association between spiciness and abstract shapes can be used to modulate how people interpret an ambiguous image.

This study investigated how exteroceptive and interoceptive cues influence sensory perception and liking of novel, heterogeneous foods. Twelve heterogeneous cheeses were prepared by adding bell pepper pieces to homogeneous processed cheese matrices. Bell pepper pieces differed in size, hardness, and concentration. Consumers (n = 73) evaluated cheeses in three conditions. In the first condition, subjects tasted cheeses and rated them on sensory properties and liking while being blindfolded (interoceptive condition). In the second condition, participants evaluated expected sensory properties and liking of cheeses presented as pictures together with product descriptions (exteroceptive condition). In the third condition, consumers tasted and evaluated cheeses while visual cues and product descriptions were provided (combined condition). The hardness and concentration of bell pepper pieces predominantly determined variations in sensory perception in the interoceptive and combined conditions, whereas bell pepper size or concentration influenced expected sensory properties in the exteroceptive condition the most. Consumers expected to like the cheeses with small-medium sized bell pepper pieces the most. However, from the other conditions, we observed that piece size does not play a role in determining liking, and that cheeses with soft pieces were actually preferred most. From the comparison of the three conditions, we conclude that both visual and oral sensory cues influence texture and flavour perception of heterogeneous cheeses. Consumers’ liking was not influenced by the cheese’s exteroceptive cues during the combined condition. In contrast, interoceptive cues as hardness played a large role in determining variations in consumer’s hedonic responses. We conclude that for novel, heterogeneous foods liking after consumption is determined by textural product properties and depends to a large extent on the confirmation of consumers’ sensory expectations.

Disconfirmations between consumers’ expectations and a product’s actual properties can lead to different responses in consumers. Most researchers study these responses focusing on the final judgement of the product. However, looking at consumers’ physiological responses like those of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) could help complement what is known about consumer reactions and final response to disconfirmed expectations. This study evaluated how ANS responses change when tasting juice samples that were as expected, that differed slightly, or that differed greatly from manipulated expectations and whether these responses vary from those obtained when there is no manipulation of expectations. Eighty-six participants tasted fruit and vegetable juices in two separate sessions. They were divided in two conditions. In Condition A, expectations were manipulated by showing participants the image of an ingredient and then providing them with a juice whose flavour was as expected, differed slightly, or differed greatly from that of the image. In Condition B, each juice was first tasted without explicit information shown beforehand and the image of the ingredient was shown afterwards. The images were the same as in Condition A. Heart rate and skin conductance were measured. To confirm that participants perceived confirmations and large and small disconfirmations when tasting the juices, they rated the samples in different sensory properties before and after tasting them. Results from most of the sensory ratings, except sourness and taste intensity, showed that participants perceived the designed confirmation and disconfirmation of expectations accordingly. Regarding ANS responses, heart rate had a larger increase during the second session than during the first. Skin conductance responses increased in Condition A but decreased in Condition B. In conclusion, our design managed to create confirmations and varying levels of disconfirmations. ANS responses did not capture them but seemed to capture factors like attention and the orientation response.

The addition of food particles to food matrices is a convenient approach that allows to steer oral behavior, sensory perception and satiation. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of physical-chemical properties of heterogenous foods on oral processing behavior, bolus properties and dynamic sensory perception. Bell pepper gel pieces varying in fracture stress and concentration were added to processed cream cheese matrices differing in texture. Addition of bell pepper gel pieces to processed cheeses increased consumption time, decreased eating rate and led to harder and less adhesive bolus with more saliva incorporated. Addition of bell pepper gel pieces to processed cheeses decreased dominance rate and duration of creaminess, smoothness, melting and dairy flavor and increased graininess and bell pepper flavor. Increasing fracture stress of bell pepper gel pieces from 100 to 300 kPa resulted in longer consumption time and lower eating rate. For hard/non-adhesive processed cheese matrices increasing gel pieces fracture stress lead to a boli with larger particles and more saliva. These changes were accompanied by decreased dominance perception of creaminess and bell pepper flavor and increased dominance of graininess. Increasing the concentration of bell pepper gel pieces from 15 to 30% did not affect oral behavior but led to the formation of harder and less adhesive bolus with larger particles and less saliva that were perceived with reduced dominance of creaminess, meltiness and dairy flavor while dominance of graininess and bell pepper flavor increased. Changing the texture of the cheese matrix from soft/adhesive to hard/non-adhesive decreased consumption time, increased eating rate, did not influence bolus properties and decreased dominance rate of creaminess, smoothness and melting sensations. Number of chews and total consumption time were positively correlated with saliva content of the bolus, number of bolus particles, bolus hardness, dominance of firmness, chewiness and graininess. We conclude that the modification of physical-chemical properties of processed cheeses and embedded bell pepper gel pieces can be a strategy to steer oral behavior and bolus properties which consequently determine dynamic sensory perception. ispartof: Food Quality And Preference vol:88 pages:1-11 status: Published online

This study investigated whether the addition of macroparticles or fat can be used to compensate for negative texture sensations in quark. Cellulose beads were added as model microparticles (1.5% w/w; average size: 263 µm) to quark (0% fat) to induce unpleasant gritty sensations. The addition of microparticles to quark significantly increased grittiness and dryness, while creaminess and liking decreased. Three strategies were explored to reduce the impact of unpleasant gritty sensations on consumer perception: two strategies involved the addition of macroparticles (granola or peach gel pieces); the third one consisted of increasing the fat content of the quark (4.4 and 8.8% w/w). For all three strategies, grittiness caused by microparticles did not significantly decrease when macroparticles or fat were present. Addition of peach gel pieces to quark with microparticles did not increase liking. When granola pieces were added to quark containing microparticles, liking increased significantly despite that grittiness was still perceived. Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) revealed that addition of granola pieces caused prolonged dominance of positive, crunchy sensations and minimized dominance of negative, gritty sensations. The addition of fat did not lead to a significant increase in liking of quark, although when a medium amount of fat was added (4.4%), it also did not decrease liking significantly. This was probably due to an effective hedonic compensation triggered by more positive sensations (i.e. sweetness). We conclude that addition of crunchy granola pieces or fat can be used as strategies to shift and increase dominance of positive and liked attributes, leading to an increase of overall liking, although negative sensations (grittiness) caused by microparticles are still perceived. This approach could be used to compensate for undesired texture sensations in different types of foods, such as high protein foods.

Many people struggle with the classical choice of eating a mouth-watering snack versus a healthier product. One of the reasons behind this is that unhealthier products are appealing for their direct gratification; they deliver pleasure. The present research investigates the effect of mental simulation as a relatively new strategy to possibly shift the balance between direct gratification and the consideration of longer-term benefits necessary to make healthier choices. Specifically we distinguish between imagining the consumption process versus the outcome of eating a specific product, hereafter referred to as mental simulations. In two studies, we show that participants under process simulation, i.e., imagining the process of eating, had a higher desire for the imagined product compared to a control condition, but in a choice task between a healthy and an unhealthier product, more people chose the unhealthier product over the healthier one. On the other hand, outcome simulation, i.e., imagining the outcome of eating, also generated a higher desire for the imagined product, but in this case people chose the healthier option. In terms of underlying process, we explored the role of valence of the imagined experience on desire for the imagined product. This is the first study giving insights into the processes that could be behind the impact of mental simulation on desire and food choices. Although the results are not conclusive, we propose that further research in attentional biases, and possibly emotional activation could enlighten the effect of mental simulation in food desires and choice between healthy and unhealthy alternatives.

It is unclear whether the responses of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can measure how people respond to food. Results focused on emotional responses are contradictory; therefore, the focus has shifted to other components of emotion, such as appraisals. The aim of this study was, therefore, to evaluate the differences in ANS responses related to appraisals; particularly taste novelty, valence, and the disconfirmation of expectations. A hundred and fifty-five participants joined this study. They tasted samples of different valence (sweet and bitter) twice: the first time without knowing the taste and the second while being informed of the taste. After this first block, participants tasted two additional samples: one that confirmed expectations and one that disconfirmed them. Heart rate and skin conductance were measured. Results show that the second experience with a taste led to cardiac deceleration. Heart rate changes were only related to valence when participants’ expectations were (dis)confirmed. Heart rate decreased for those tastes that disconfirmed expectations and increased for those that confirmed them and the sweet sample had larger increases in heart rate than the bitter. Skin conductance changed in regards to novelty and valence but not to the disconfirmation of expectations. It increased for the bitter sample, decreased for the sweet, and was always higher during the first experience than during the second. In conclusion, the results suggest that cardiac responses are more sensitive to novelty and the disconfirmation of expectations while skin conductance responses capture novelty and valence.

Food oral processing plays a key role in sensory perception, consumer acceptance and food intake. However, little is known about the influence of physical food properties on oral processing of different type of food products. The primary objective of this study was to determine the influence of rheological and mechanical properties of foods on oral processing behavior of liquid (drinkable), semi-solid (spoonable) and solid foods (chewable). The secondary objective was to quantify the influence of product liking, frequency of consumption and familiarity on oral processing behavior. Rheological and mechanical properties of 18 commercially available foods were quantified. Parameters describing oral processing behavior such as sip and bite size, consumption time, eating rate, number of swallows, number of chews, cycle duration, and chewing rate were extracted from video recordings of 61 consumers. Subjects evaluated products’ liking, familiarity, and frequency of consumption using questionnaires. Consumers strongly adapted oral processing behavior with respect to bite size, consumption time, and eating rate to the rheological and mechanical properties of liquid, semi-solid and solid foods. This adaptation was observed within each food category. Chewing rate and chewing cycle duration of solid foods were not influenced by mechanical properties and remained relatively constant. Liking, familiarity, and consumption frequency showed to impact oral processing behavior, although to a lower degree than the rheological and mechanical properties of food. We conclude that the oral processing behaviors of liquid, semi-solid and solid foods are mainly determined by their rheological and mechanical properties.

The images shown on food packaging play an important role in the processes of identification, categorisation and the generation of expectations, since the consumer uses the images to infer information about the product. However, a given image may convey different meanings (e.g. in a food package, “fire” may mean barbecued or spicy ), so it is very important for producers and designers to understand the factors responsible for consumers inferring a specific meaning. This paper addresses this problem and shows experimentally that the consumer tends to infer the meaning from the image which is most congruent with the product it is displayed with. 65 participants carried out two speeded classification tasks which results show an interaction between the product (congruent vs. incongruent) and the image (with fire vs. without fire): products congruent with a meaning of fire were categorised more quickly when shown with fire than without it, while products incongruent with a meaning of fire were categorised more slowly when shown with fire than without it. In addition, the results show that stimuli were categorised more quickly when the interpretation of fire was literal (e.g. barbecue) than in those that were metaphorical (e.g. spiciness), indicating that the rhetorical style of the image (literal or metaphorical) influences the cognitive effort required to process it. These contributions improve our understanding of the effect of the images shown on packaging in the communication between packaging and consumers.

Desire, purchase, and consumption of fast-moving consumer goods often follow actual motivational states instead of habitual preferences. This has led to an increasing interest within health sciences to investigate the causes for irrational eating behaviours among consumers, particularly with the use of indirect measurements. However, literature results on the relationship between dynamic, motivational concepts (e.g., approach or avoidance tendencies) and evaluative concepts (e.g., positive or negative associations) remain inconclusive, possibly due to the use of different experimental manipulations and methodologiesto operationalize these. Our aim with this study is to contribute to this line of research by developing a novel methodology that is based on structurally identical indirect measurement procedures. We measured explicit desire (motivation) and liking (evaluation) of two different foods (sandwich andsweets) on visual analogue scales, as well as implicit approach–avoidance tendencies and implicit positive–negative associations with two variants of the recoding-free Implicit Association Tests (IAT-RFs). At first, all participants (N = 108) unwrapped, smelled, and explicitly judged the two foods, then allwatched a video clip (during which half of the participants were allowed to eat the sandwich but not the sweets), and finally they all performed the two indirect measurements. Thus, desire for the foods was experimentally manipulated between participants. We hypothesized that a valid measure should show an interaction of food category (manipulated within participants) and desire fulfilment. Hence, explicit desire and implicit approach motivation should behigher for participants that were not allowed to consume the sandwich and fulfil their desire, compared to the group that was able to eat the sandwich during the experiment. Results confirm our hypothesis. The motivational IAT-RF correctly assessed approach tendencies towards the sandwich in the group thatdid not eat, and approach tendencies towards the sweets in the group that just ate a sandwich. In contrast, the evaluative IAT-RF measure did not reflect a clear ‘‘preference” towards any of the two popular products in both groups. This research provides a potentially relevant methodology for consumer studies’ by offering a chance to differentiate between implicit motivational and evaluative concepts within consumer behaviour

The joint investigation of the product, the consumer, and the consumption context is necessary for furthering the understanding of eating occasions (snacks and main meals), including their construction and enjoyment. The study of people’s experience of eating occasions is less advanced than the understanding of acceptability, preference, and choice of individual food/beverage items and/or their combination in meals. The current research contributes to narrowing this gap by focusing on emotions as a dimension of eating experiences and enjoyment. Under evoked consumption contexts (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner), the emotion associations for several products (potato crisps, chocolate brownie, and kiwifruit) were obtained from consumers (n = 399) using a questionnaire method. Emotion associations were explored in relation to: (1) the way in which the food stimulus was evaluated by participants (tasting food vs. seeing a food image); (2) the serving presentation of the food stimulus (image of food shown in isolation vs. image of food served on a plate with cutlery); and (3) the means in which the consumption context was evoked (written vs. written and pictorial). Consumers’ product emotion associations when tasting a food stimulus vs. seeing an image of the same food were highly similar. There was some evidence that more specific means of presenting the food stimuli (with tableware vs. without tableware) and consumption contexts (written and pictorially vs. written only) influenced perceived appropriateness of the product in the focal consumption context. This resulted, for example, in a higher frequency of use of negative emotion terms in the less appropriate consumption contexts. Overall, through the use of evoked consumption contexts this research has contributed new understanding of product-specific emotional associations during eating occasions from a methodological approach. In addition to the aforementioned results a more general finding was the apparent reliance by participants on past product experiences when completing the emotion questionnaire.

Consumers’ perception of, and behaviour towards, products are influenced by extrinsic cues, including packaging and social norms. However, the understanding of this process is unsatisfactorily captured by questionnaires. Autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses can be used to measure implicit consumer responses. The aim of this work was to assess how packaging cues and social norms influence product expectation, product perception, and ANS responses. Ninety-eight adults (age: 23.3 ± 3.2 years; BMI: 21.3 ± 2.2 kg/m2) first viewed four images of a yogurt package modified in hue (blue/red), brightness (high/low), and saturation (high/low) and two dummies alongside a fictitious product popularity score. After each image presentation, participants rated their expectations of the yogurt, tasted, and rated their perception of it. Expectations and the perception of liking, healthiness, sweetness, and flavour intensity were rated on 100-unit VAS scales. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance response (SCR) to the image and tasting were measured. The darker, saturated red package elicited the lowest expectation of healthiness and the highest expectation of flavour intensity and sweetness. Red packages increased SCR while blue packages decreased them. During yogurt tasting, low product popularity was associated with a stronger decrease in SCR than a high popularity. Overall, the measured ANS responses were small. In conclusion, this study was the first to look at the effect of expectations elicited by a product’s packaging colour and popularity on explicit ratings and ANS responses. We found differences in SCR to package colour and product popularity, suggesting their importance in affecting consumer responses.

Sensory and consumer scientists are seeing the need to explore broader measures, such as product-driven emotions, to be able to fully understand and satisfy consumers’ demands. However, to date, the consumer methodologies used in food-related emotion research have neglected a crucial element linked to emotions: the consumption context. This is a concern, because consumers’ emotional responses to food are elicited by many other sources apart from the sensory properties of the food itself. The present research aimed to fill in this gap of knowledge by exploring how evoked consumption contexts affect responses obtained from an emotion questionnaire. Two food stimuli (apple and chocolate brownie) and three different consumption contexts (a ‘weekend breakfast’, an ‘afternoon snack’, and ‘after a special dinner’) were used to vary the level of product-context appropriateness. A within-subject design was used in which 157 participants first completed an emotion questionnaire (36 terms, checklist format) in response to each of the evoked consumption contexts (presented in written format). A week later, the same participants completed the same emotion questionnaire while imagining themselves eating an apple or chocolate brownie (shown as images) without any given context (control condition), and then under the three different contexts (random monadic sequential order). When the chocolate brownie was the food stimulus, 20 of 36 emotion responses were significantly different from context to context (including the no-context condition). Conversely, only 9 significant differences were established when apple was the food stimulus. It was also found that frequency of use of positive emotion terms was higher in those consumption contexts that were considered more appropriate, whereas negative emotion terms were more frequently selected when the context was perceived as less appropriate for the product. Taken together, these findings highlight how the context in which a food is consumed (even if imagined) can affect consumers’ emotion responses towards it. More broadly, they demonstrate the reciprocal effect that the context and the product have on the elicited emotion responses, which are not situationally invariant. This research also explored how psychological traits related to emotional eating affected the emotion responses and found that in general higher emotional eaters selected a higher number of emotion terms (positive and negative). This study represents a needed advance in food-related emotion research, and upon replication of the results with other product-context combinations, could offer an easy-to-implement methodology that should more closely match the emotion responses that consumers would elicit in real-life situations while eating and drinking.

It is often claimed that colour (e.g., in a meal) affects consumption behaviour. However, just how strong is the evidence in support of this claim, and what are the underlying mechanisms? It has been shown that not only the colour itself, but also the variety and the arrangement of the differently-coloured components in a meal influence consumers' ratings of the pleasantness of a meal (across time) and, to a certain extent, might even affect their consumption behaviour as well. Typically, eating the same food constantly or repeatedly leads to a decrease in its perceived pleasantness, which, as a consequence, might lead to decreased intake of that food. However, variation within a meal (in one or several sensory attributes, or holistically) has been shown to slow down this process. In this review, we first briefly summarize the literature on how general variety in a meal influences these variables and the major theories that have been put forward by researchers to explain them. We then go on to evaluate the evidence of these effects based mainly on the colour of the food explaining the different processes that might affect colour-based sensory-specific satiety and, in more detail, consumption behaviour. In addition, we also discuss the overlap in the definitions of these terms and provide additional hypothesis as to why, in some cases, the opposite pattern of results has been observed.

Most of the published research on the perception of food texture has focused on what happens in-mouth during consumption. It is, however, important to note that people's judgments of food texture can also be influenced by other sensory cues, such as haptic input, be it their direct contact with the food, or possibly also their indirect contact with the product packaging as well. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether changing the surface texture of the product packaging would affect people's perception of the product contained within-that is, we wanted to know whether the feel of the packaging held in a consumer's hand would influence the perceived texture of the food. Participants tasted biscuits and yoghurt samples from pots (yoghurt containers) that varied in terms of their surface texture (rough/granular vs. smooth). Additionally, the foodstuffs also varied in terms of their texture (crunchiness and thickness, respectively). In a 2. ×. 2 experimental design, the participants assessed the texture of the foodstuff and their liking for it while holding the pot in their non-dominant hand. The results revealed that the texture of the container influenced participants' ratings of certain of the texture attributes being assessed, namely the most related ones. These findings shed light on the importance of nondiagnostic haptic cues (defined as those that objectively should not identify or prompt any effect) in the perception of food. These results, explained in terms of sensation transference, could have important implications for the food packaging and hospitality sectors. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd., Thanks to the Ministerio de Educacion (Spain) for the FPU scholarship awarded to B. P-F.

The increasing average life expectancy and overall percentage of the older population is leading to a growing interest in healthy aging. Thus, there is a demand for flavourful, and pleasant foods, rich in certain nutrients, targeted at older consumers. In order to be able to tailor foods to older consumers wants and needs, it is necessary to investigate and – if necessary – to further improve sensory and consumer science testing methodologies when working with healthy and frail/malnourished older adults. This study aims to investigate older consumers’ perception and performance of two sensory-hedonic methods conducted at home based on their ease of use, preference, duration to complete the task, and discrimination ability. Insights about their understanding of the tasks were also collected. Additionally, the study compares the older adults’ performance and perception to those of young consumers. The two methods selected for comparison were Yes/No forced-choice Check-All-That-Apply with ideal (CATA-I) and Ideal Profile Method (IPM). Due to the interest in older consumers increasing their protein intake, seven protein-enriched dairy drinks were selected. The dairy drinks were sampled one per day, using one method one week and the other method two weeks later by 67 older (M = 67.96 y.o., SD = 5.09) and 83 young subjects (M = 22.95 y.o., SD = 2.31). Although the IPM method was reported to be more difficult for the older group than CATA-I, there was no preference between the two methods. In addition, they seemed to struggle with the limited options in CATA-I. The data of the older consumers revealed a similar number of discriminating attributes to characterise the products using both methods; the results were also similar to those of the young participants. This study provides novel consumer-centric insights on the use and understanding of two relatively new sensory-hedonic methods by older adults.

Consumers naturally associate emotions to meal occasions and understanding these can advance knowledge of food-related behaviours and attitudes. The present study used an online survey to investigate the emotional associations that people have with recalled meals: 'memorable' (MM) and 'routine' evening (RM). Heterogeneity in the studied consumer population (UK adults, n = 576 and 571, respectively) was accounted for using a data-driven approach to establish emotion-based segments. Two groups of people were identified with very different emotional response patterns to recalled meals. For 'memorable' and 'routine' meals the majority of people (Cluster 1) held strong positive and weak negative emotional associations. In Cluster 2, positive emotions remained more strongly associated than negative emotions, but much less so. In accordance with findings based on other response variables (e.g., preference, attitudes), psychographic variables accounted better for the heterogeneity found in the emotion associations than socio-demographic variables. Participants' level of meal engagement and difficulty in describing feelings (DDF scale) were the two most important predictors of cluster membership.

We report the results of a quick and simple online questionnaire designed to rapidly assess the crossmodal correspondences that exist between the oral-somatosensory experiences associated with still and sparkling water and certain colours (blue, red, or green) and shapes (organic vs. angular). The results of this online data collection technique proved to be comparable to (and consistent with) data collected in the laboratory, revealing that still water was consistently matched with organic abstract shapes and sparkling water with angular abstract shapes. Both still and sparkling water were preferentially associated with the colour blue, rather than red or green. Additionally, these results were corroborated in a follow-up experiment where the shapes and colours were placed against a range of background bottle designs. The implications of these results for the design of labels and packaging for water are discussed. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

[EN] We report a study designed to investigate consumers' crossmodal associations between the color of packaging and flavor varieties in crisps (potato chips). This product category was chosen because of the long-established but conflicting color-flavor conventions that exist for the salt and vinegar and cheese and onion flavor varieties in the UK. The use of both implicit and explicit measures of this crossmodal association revealed that consumers responded more slowly, and made more errors, when they had to pair the color and flavor that they implicitly thought of as being "incongruent" with the same response key. Furthermore, clustering consumers by the brand that they normally purchased revealed that the main reason why this pattern of results was observed could be their differing acquaintance with one brand versus another. In addition, when participants tried the two types of crisps from "congruently" and "incongruently" colored packets, some were unable to guess the flavor correctly in the latter case. These strong crossmodal associations did not have a significant effect on participants' hedonic appraisal of the crisps, but did arouse confusion. These results are relevant in terms of R&D, since ascertaining the appropriate color of the packaging across flavor varieties ought normally to help achieve immediate product recognition and consumer satisfaction. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd., Thanks to the Ministerio de Educacion (Spain) and the UPV for the scholarships awarded to Betina Piqueras-Fiszman. Thanks also to Cesare Parise for his collaboration with the programming.

This article constitutes a state-of-the-art review of the literature on the effects of expectations on the sensory perception of food and drink by humans. In the ‘Introduction’, we summarize the theoretical models of expectations that have been put forward. In the ‘Empirical research utilizing direct methods’ section, we describe the influence that expectations created by a variety of product extrinsic cues have on sensory perception, hedonic appraisal, and intake/consumption. We critically evaluate the evidence that has emerged from both laboratory studies and real-world research conducted in the setting of the restaurant, canteen, and bar. This literature review is focused primarily on those studies that have demonstrated an effect on tasting. Crucially, this review goes beyond previous work in the area by highlighting the relevant cognitive neuroscience literature (see the section ‘Applied research through the lens of cognitive neuroscience methods’) and the postulated psychological mechanisms of expectation in terms of recent accounts of predictive coding and Bayesian decision theory (see the ‘Predictive coding and expectations’ section).

In consideration of the widespread use of check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions in sensory and consumer research, the investigation of how the panel performs in this methodology is deemed necessary. Checking the reliability of this type of data is relevant, mostly in situations where, as a rapid method, it is obtained from consumers and in less controlled conditions such as online studies. While an excellent performance is expected and required from trained subjects, when working with consumers it is convenient to explore the data obtained, since this can also hint at how seriously they are taking the task, their levels of fatigue, boredom, etc. In this work, we have developed some complementary tools to existing ones to be able to evaluate statistically the reproducibility of both the respondents and the panel. The assessment of the reliability of the panel would not be complete without other methodologies dedicated to the reproducibility at the panel level of the products and of the terms, and to the assessment of the agreements between pairs of respondents, and between each respondent and the panel solution. For those criteria, methodologies based on multiple factor analysis on contingency tables and McNemar test are presented. To illustrate the methodology developed, the statistical complements were applied on data from two studies. The studies, one involving emotions and another one sensory characterisation data, were conducted in two different test–retest sessions. Keywords: Reproducibility Agreement CATA data MFACT Significance testing McNemar test

The aim of this research was to investigate the impact that perceived product–context appropriateness exerts on elicited emotion associations. The experimental approach consisted in creating eating occasions (as a multi-component entity) varying in appropriateness, which consumers were instructed to vividly imagine while they completed emotion surveys for selected products. Multiple studies were purposefully designed to include different products, contextual dimensions (comprising internal and external conditions) and presentation formats, consumer populations, test locations, and emotion survey formats. The results from 1336 consumers consistently revealed an effect of appropriateness on the emotion associations toward food products and eating occasions. The frequency and intensity of positive emotion terms was generally higher with more appropriate contexts, decreasing with the appropriateness ratings (and vice versa for the negative emotion terms). In addition, the impact of perceived appropriateness was asymmetrical, having a stronger impact on positive than on negative emotion terms. These insights support the idea that emotion responses are subject to a large number of contextual influences, and make a robust case for including appropriateness measures in context and emotion research.

Previous research has demonstrated that the context in which a certain food is consumed (even if imagined) can affect consumers’ associative emotional responses to that product. In three separate studies we extended this line of research by: (1) replicating these previous findings with consumers from another country and another product category; (2) investigating the impact of participants’ product consumption frequency on their associative emotional responses; and (3) examining whether the emotional associations involved in eating certain products in evoked contexts are stable through time. The results of this work support previous findings demonstrating the impact of the consumption context (and its perceived appropriateness) on consumers’ reported emotional associations with a food product, and that this result is generalizable across nationalities. We also confirm that the associative emotion profiles of more emotion-laden product categories (in comparison with more neutral ones; e.g. chocolate vs. fruit) are more variable between contexts. In addition, the emotional associative profiles obtained from two groups of participants that were either high or low frequent consumers of the food stimuli did not differ to any significant extent. Finally, the emotion responses provided under evoked consumption contexts seemed to be consistent (stable) across time. Taken together, this study strengthens the rationale for evoking consumption contexts during emotion-related tasks, demonstrating that this methodology provides repeatable results and insights that go beyond the product and the consumer. Keywords Emotion responses; Consumption context; Appropriateness; Consumer research; Stability; Frequency of consumption

Wanting and rejecting food are natural reactions that we humans all experience, often unconsciously, on a daily basis. However, in the food domain, the focus to date has primarily been on the approach tendency, and researchers have tended not to study the two opposing tendencies in a balanced manner. Here, we develop a methodology with which to understand people’s implicit and explicit reactions to both positive (appealing) and negative (disgusting) foods. It consists of a combination of direct and indirect computer-based tasks, as well as a validated food image stimulus set, specifically designed to investigate motivational approach and avoidance responses towards foods. Fifty non-dieting participantsvarying in terms of their hunger state (hungry vs. not hungry) reported their explicit evaluations of pleasantness, wanting, and disgust towards the idea of tasting each of the food images that were shown. Their motivational tendencies towards those food items were assessed indirectly using a joystick-basedapproach-avoidance procedure. For each of the food images that were presented, the participants had to move the joystick either towards or away from themselves (approach and avoidance movements, respectively) according to some unrelated instructions, while their reaction times were recorded. Our findings demonstrated the hypothesised approach–avoidance compatibility effect: a significant interaction of food valence and direction of movement. Furthermore, differences between the experimental groups were observed. The participants in the no-hunger group performed avoidance (vs. approach) movements significantly faster; and their approach movements towards positive (vs. negative) foods were significantly faster. As expected, the self-report measures revealed a strong effect of the food category on the three dependent variables and a strong main effect of the hunger state on wanting and to a lesser extent on pleasantness.

The present study utilized the techniques of eye tracking and word association in order to collect attentional information and freely-elicited associations from consumers in response to changing specific attributes of the product packaging (jam jars). We assessed the relationship between the data obtained from these two measures in a non goal-directed (or choice-based) task. Additionally, we addressed the question of which packaging attributes affected the consumers’ self-reported willingness to try the product. To relate how each element variation contributed to the focusing of participants’ attention on each area of interest to the immediate message that they conveyed and to the participants’ willingness to try, the rich mixed data obtained were analysed by means of conjoint analysis and multiple factor analysis. The results demonstrated that certain elements of the product packaging can be used to drive visual attention to one element or another; for instance, the ridged surface of certain jars contributed to spread the gaze; however, an important part of the associations that these formats elicited were related to the ridges or to unusualness of the packaging, suggesting that these “secondary” stimuli also captured attention. Though this case study does not provide direct guidelines for packaging design, it does shed light on the importance of knowing how to combine the appropriate design elements to predetermine consumers’ gaze patterns in order to convey the desired messaging on product packaging. Highlights ¿ Eye tracking and word association were used in a study about packaging. ¿ Conjoint analysis and MFA were used to interpret and relate attentional and textual data. ¿ The areas that captured more attention were the flavour label, photograph and the logo. ¿ These elements elicited the higher number of sensory and positive hedonic associations. ¿ A squared format and a ridged texture spread the attention from the centre of the packaging image. Keywords Eye tracking; Consumer attention; Packaging design; Word association; Conjoint analysis; Multiple factor analysis

We report a study designed to investigate consumers' crossmodal associations between the colour of product packaging and flavour varieties in crisps (potato chips) among Colombian and British consumers, using two methods. In a modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the stimuli consisted of green and blue coloured packets and the flavours normally paired with these colours for a certain brand in the UK and Colombia. In an explicit word (colour) association task, unbranded, grayscale packets with three new flavours were shown instead. The results obtained from both tasks revealed two main kinds of associations between the colour of the packaging and flavour types: (1) A learned association through a conventional pairing attributable to a specific brand, and (2) an association between a flavour and its potential packaging colour, based on the colour of the primary named ingredients. In addition, when comparing associative patterns documented in the two countries, no specific cultural differences were found. The techniques used here and the results reported are relevant for R&D since they contribute to the existing knowledge on colour associations and raise questions regarding their origin. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd., The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Education for the PhD scholarship awarded to Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, and acknowledge Alejandro Salgado-Montejo for his contribution to data collection in Colombia, Thierry Worch for his contribution to the statistical analysis, and the reviewers for their very valuable comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

This study investigated the effect that the taste of certain metals has on the perception of food. Four spoons plated with different metals (gold, copper, zinc, and stainless steel) were used to taste cream samples having different tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and plain. The results revealed that the zinc and copper spoons, in addition to transferring a somewhat metallic and bitter taste, enhanced to a greater or lesser extent, each cream's dominant taste. Contrary to our expectations, the metallic taste of the copper and zinc spoons did not seem to affect the pleasantness of the samples significantly. These findings reveal that the effect that the metals from which cutlery can be made have on food perception differs from that found when the metal salts are added to the composition of the food itself. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd., The authors would like to thank the Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia (Spain) and to the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia [PAID-00-11] for the grants awarded to author B. Piqueras-Fiszman.

Our perception of food is affected by the sensory properties of the food itself, together with our expectations about the food and other contextual factors. The latter are especially relevant in the restaurant setting, where appearance factors, such as the presentation of the food on the plates can dramatically affect food liking and consumption. However, to date, not much emphasis has been placed on the effect of the appearance of the accessories on our perception of food. The aims of the present study were therefore to test the extent to which the appearance properties of the plate influence the taste/flavor experiences of the food served on it. Specifically, we investigated the influence of the color (black or white) and shape of the plate on the perception of flavor intensity, sweetness, quality, and liking for identical strawberry mousse desserts. The results demonstrated that while the color of the plate exerted a significant influence on people's perception of the food, the shape of the plate did not. In particular, when the mousse was served from a white plate, it was perceived as significantly more intense and sweeter, and was also liked more. These results therefore demonstrate the importance of the color (if not the shape) of the plate on people's perception of food., The authors would like to thank the Ministerio de Educacion (Spain) and the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia for the grants awarded to Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, all staff members from Alicia Foundation involved in the project, and all the participants who volunteered to take part in the study.

[EN] We report a study designed to investigate the influence of the weight of the container on expected satiety prior to tasting the food within and on the perceived density of the food and any feelings of fullness expected to follow consumption (expected satiation). The results demonstrate that the contents of a heavier container are expected to be more satiating than when exactly the same contents are presented in a visually-identical, but physically lighter, container (even before the food has been tasted). In addition, we were able to validate a " weight-density" illusion, since the weight of the container was shown to influence the perceived density of the sample. Put simply, the heavier the container, the denser the food sample was perceived to be. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd., Thanks to the Ministerio de Educacion (Spain) and the UPV for the scholarships awarded to Betina Piqueras-Fiszman.

In this research work, a multidisciplinary approach was applied to answer the question: do consumers perceive what semiotics want to convey? The idea behind was to determine if consumers' expectations and associations raised by simulated yogurt labels, designed with different sign combinations frequently applied in commercial products, were in agreement with results from a semiotic analysis, and to check for cultural differences, comparing results from two Spanish-speaking countries (Spain and Uruguay).A survey of the plain yogurt market was performed, followed by a semiotic analysis of the gathered labels performed by a team of semiotics experts. Only the non-verbal elements such as images, visual structure, colors, typography and their combinations, were considered; so brand, price, nutritional information, composition, etc. were nor taken into consideration. The main messages conveyed by the labels were summarized and based on that, five yogurt model labels were designed and subsequently used as stimuli in a consumer study. An online consumer questionnaire, based on a word association task, was performed in both countries to understand the words, descriptions, associations, thoughts or feelings generated by the model labels. The approach was successful, and the results obtained showed that the main messages conveyed by the model labels were well understood in Spain and Uruguay; however some cultural differences in the perception of the messages could be highlighted. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.