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Cross-Modal Associations Between Real Tastes and Colors
Abstract
People make reliable and consistent matches between taste and color. However, in contrast to other cross-modal correspondences, all of the research to date has used only taste words (and often color words too), potentially limiting our understanding of how taste-color matches arise. Here, participants sampled the five basic tastes, at three concentration steps, and selected their best matching color from a color-wheel. This test was repeated, and in addition, participants evaluated the valence of the taste and their color choice, as well as the qualities/intensities of the taste stimuli. Participants were then presented with taste names and asked to generate the best matching color name, as well as reporting how they made their earlier choices. Color selections were reliable and consistent, and closely followed those based on taste word matches obtained in this and prior studies. Most participants reported basing their color choices on their associated taste-object (often foods). There was marked similarity in valence between taste and color choices, and the saturation of color choices was related to tastant concentration. We discuss what drives color-taste pairings, with learning suggested as one possible mechanism.
... The results of our pre-study are closely aligned with past research. For colour, the common association between red and orange with sweetness was replicated (Strugnell, 1997;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). Yellow presents an interesting finding wherein it is associated with both sweetness and sourness, likely due to fruits such as bananas/lemons. ...
... Yellow presents an interesting finding wherein it is associated with both sweetness and sourness, likely due to fruits such as bananas/lemons. Another expected finding was that green was associated with sourness (Koch and Koch, 2003;Tomasik-KrÓtki and Strojny, 2008;Wan et al., 2014;Huisman et al., 2016;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). Past literature has also sometimes associated green with bitterness (O'Mahony, 1983;Spence and Levitan, 2021;Spence, 2023) with inconsistencies potentially due to cross-cultural differences and confusion between sour and bitter Wan et al., 2014), blue did not appear related to sourness, although past research has also reported similar findings (Koch and Koch, 2003;Wan et al., 2014) and that blue appears related more so to saltiness (Tomasik-KrÓtki and Strojny, 2008;Spence and Levitan, 2021). ...
... While we aimed for this to act as a "neutral" representation, the grey cube may have been too far removed from real food. This is important as people report using their past (IRL) taste experiences as a justification for their colourtaste associations (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). This is concordant with the crossmodal statistical account in which taste perception is influenced by natural correlations learned from prior experiences where we extract information from the properties of food (Spence, 2011). ...
Introduction
When we taste, we take in a variety of sensory information that can be completely independent from the properties of the food itself: the ambient lighting and environmental sounds can all influence our taste perception and affective responses. However, current multisensory research is mixed as to whether these In Real Life (IRL) findings also apply to Extended Reality (XR) environments. A potential reason for this may be the limited realism of some XR scenarios, which this study aimed to overcome through an immersive Virtual Reality experience (VR, chosen for its greater realism relative to other XR applications) whilst also expanding the scope to flavour perception.
Methods
A total of 34 participants rated food samples under neutral, red, and green ambient lighting in VR. Participants ate either lime flavoured, strawberry flavoured, or “Neutral” (no added flavour) samples.
Results
While participants were equally immersed in all three environments, they rated the red and green lighting environments as substantially less natural than the neutral lighting environment. Interestingly, while participants associated sweetness and sourness with red lighting and green lighting respectively, this minimally extended to their behavioural ratings, when sampling the stimuli in VR. Samples eaten under red lighting were rated as significantly sweeter than those eaten under neutral lighting. However, neither red nor green lighting affected sample sourness nor the intensity of strawberry or lime flavour.
Discussion
This study found limited evidence of multisensory integration in XR, wherein taste expectations do not extend to taste experiences. We discuss these results in light of prior works on crossmodal associations and raise a reflection on why multisensory integration of taste may not apply to XR in our study. While there is much excitement about the opportunities XR can offer, we argue that we are only at the beginning of understanding the experiences on the reality-virtuality continuum and that we need to establish a richer understanding of participants' experiences, expectations, and taste/flavour perceptions between IRL and XR.
... A variety of crossmodal correspondences between visually-presented features including shape curvature and symmetry (Turoman et al., 2018), textures (Barbosa Escobar et al., 2022), and colours (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018), on the one hand, and taste and/or taste words on the other, have been documented to date. For instance, people typically tend to associate sweetness with roundness and pinkish-red hues and other tastes such as bitterness and sourness with shape angularity and yellow/ green hues (e.g., Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2016. ...
... Overall, these results appear to indicate that, although certain image colours match the searched tastes following the documented taste-colour correspondences (e.g., sweet and red), others did not (e.g., bitterness and green, yellow, orange and red) (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). Notably, however, previous studies typically include only a selected number of colours. ...
... We use taste words in the present research. They have been shown to give rise to similar patterns of results as when actual tastants are used (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). ...
A multitude of crossmodal correspondences have now been documented between taste (gustation) and visual features (such as hue). In the present study, new analytical methods are used to investigate taste-colour correspondences in a more fine-grained manner while also investigating potential underlying mechanisms. In Experiment 1, image processing analysis is used to evaluate whether searching online for visual images associated with specific taste words (e.g., bitter, sweet) generates outcomes with colour proportions similar to those that have been documented in the literature on taste-colour correspondences. Colour-taste matching tasks incorporating a much wider colour space than tested in previous studies, were assessed in Experiments 2 and 3. Experiments 3 and 4 assessed the extent to which the statistical regularities of the environment, as captured by food object categories, might help to explain the aforementioned correspondences and to what extent the correspondences are present in online content associated to specific tastes, respectively. Experiment 5 evaluated the role of statistical regularities in underpinning colour-taste correspondences related to the stage of ripening of fruit. Overall, the findings revealed consistent associations between specific colours and tastes, in a more nuanced manner than demonstrated in previous studies, while showing that both food object categories and the stage of fruit ripening significantly influenced colour and taste perceptions. This, in turn, suggests that people might base these correspondences on both the foods present in their environments, as well as the natural changes that they undergo as they ripe. The results are discussed in light of the different accounts suggested to explain colour-taste correspondences.
... People would choose similarly when tasked with connecting the verbal concepts of different senses, as in pairing the words of taste with that of a visual feature (e.g., people typically report that the word "red" matches the word "sweet" and vice versa; O'Mahony, 1983). At the same time, however, these correspondences have also been observed at a perceptual level, such as between color patches and actual tastants (e.g., Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Velasco et al., 2015b;Velasco et al., 2016a). When manipulated appropriately, the presentation of visual stimuli has even been shown to modify people's expectations and perception of gustatory stimuli (e.g., Liang et al., 2016;Stewart & Goss, 2013;Velasco et al., 2018a). ...
... Over the past few decades, the literature on visual-taste crossmodal correspondences has nearly always analyzed specific visual features, such as color and shape, while distinguishing basic taste qualities Velasco et al., 2014). Occasionally, attempts have also been made to assess those correspondences that people have with taste intensity (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Wang et al., 2016). These approaches have led to the now well-documented cases of color-taste and shape-taste correspondences. ...
... While the use of verbal stimuli in crossmodal correspondences research has never been seriously challenged, it remains a potential issue that could limit the effectiveness of any attempts to modify sensory perception in real life. As such, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) tested color-taste matchings using tastant solutions (i.e., instead of words referring to basic tastes as used in the majority of the previous research). The participants in their study (N = 50) picked a hue from the color wheel to match with a basic taste after having tasted it in solution. ...
People tend to associate abstract visual features with basic taste qualities. This narrative historical review critically evaluates the literature on these associations, often referred to as crossmodal correspondences, between basic tastes and visual design features such as color hue and shape curvilinearity. The patterns, discrepancies, and evolution in the development of the research are highlighted while the mappings that have been reported to date are summarized. The review also reflects on issues of cross-cultural validity and deviations in the matching patterns that are observed when correspondences are assessed with actual tastants versus with verbal stimuli. The various theories that have been proposed to account for different classes of crossmodal correspondence are discussed, among which the statistical and affective (or emotional-mediation) accounts currently appear most promising. Several critical research questions for the future are presented to address the gaps that have been identified in the literature and help validate the popular theories on the origin and operations of visual-taste correspondences.
... Some research on cross-modal correspondence is based on mental representations without actual experiences of sensory stimuli. Word matching has been used to investigate mental representations of temperature-based or taste-based correspondence (e.g., Velasco et al., 2015;Motoki et al., 2019b) because previous research suggests that cross-modal correspondence may result even when sensing words are used without sensory experiences Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2018bSaluja and Stevenson, 2018). ...
... In our case, it is possible that participants associated the high amount of green color with expectations of acidity of the coffee. Research suggests that there is a color-basic taste crossmodal correspondence between green and sourness/acidity Saluja and Stevenson, 2018) that can influence drinking experiences . ...
... Despite this assumption of bidirectionality in crossmodal correspondences, however, there is a large asymmetry between the number of studies investigating the influence of color on flavor perception, and those on how color might be influenced by flavor . Still, there are studies showing that certain basic tastes are indeed associated with colors (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018), as are linguistic references to taste , and that bidirectionality is present in other modalities (e.g., Mesfin et al., 2018). While relatively few endeavors have investigated bidirectional influences, even fewer-if at all-have aimed at investigating them in the context of cross-modal contrasts (i.e., contrasting the expectation from one modality to the experience in another modality; see . ...
Eating and drinking are undoubtedly amongst life’s most multisensory experiences. Take, for instance, the enjoyment of flavor, which is one of the most important elements of such experiences, resulting from the integration of gustatory, (retronasal) olfactory, and possibly also trigeminal/oral-somatosensory cues. Nevertheless, researchers have suggested that all our senses can influence the way in which we perceive flavor, not to mention our eating and drinking experiences. For instance, the color and shape of the food, the background sonic/noise cues in our eating environments, and/or the sounds associated with mastication can all influence our perception and enjoyment of our eating and drinking experiences. Human-Food Interaction (HFI) research has been growing steadily in recent years. Research into multisensory interactions designed to create, modify, and/or enhance our food-related experiences is one of the core areas of HFI (Multisensory HFI or MHFI). The aim being to further our understanding of the principles that govern the systematic connections between the senses in the context of HFI.
In this Research Topic, we called for investigations and applications of systems that create new, or enhance already existing, multisensory eating and drinking experiences (what can be considered the “hacking” of food experiences) in the context of HFI. Moreover, we were also interested in those works that focus on or are based on the principles governing the systematic connections that exist between the senses. HFI also involves the experiencing of food interactions digitally in remote locations. Therefore, we were also interested in sensing and actuation interfaces, new communication mediums, and persisting and retrieving technologies for human food interactions. Enhancing social interactions to augment the eating experience is another issue we wanted to see addressed here, what has been referred to as “digital commensality”.
... When asked to match a basic taste with a color, people choose some tastes more frequently than the others (e.g., yellow-sour/red-sweet; O'Mahony, 1983;Spence et al., 2015;Woods and Spence, 2016;Velasco et al., 2016a). These naturally biased color-taste associations might be explained by learning with frequent exposure to the color of foods/drinks in the environment Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Higgins and Hayes, 2019;Spence, 2019). Spence (2011) defined the tendency to match distinct features or dimensions of experience across sensory modalities as crossmodal correspondences. ...
... These accounts of crossmodal correspondence are intertwined and not mutually exclusive and some crossmodal correspondences could be explained by combinations of more than one hypothesis (Spence, 2011). Crossmodal correspondences between visual features (color/ shape) and basic tastes have been widely studied, and specific color-taste/shape-taste associations have been observed (e.g., yellow-sour, red-sweet, angular shapes-sour/bitter, and round shapes-sweet associations; Spence and Gallace, 2011;Spence, 2012Spence, , 2019Spence and Ngo, 2012;Bremner et al., 2013;Wan et al., 2014;Spence et al., 2015;Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2016aSaluja and Stevenson, 2018;Turoman et al., 2018;Higgins and Hayes, 2019;Spence and Levitan, 2021). Statistical/semantic/ emotional correspondence hypotheses were suggested to explain some of these visual-taste associations. ...
... Statistical/semantic/ emotional correspondence hypotheses were suggested to explain some of these visual-taste associations. For example, color-taste associations might be explained by the statistical learning of co-occurrences in the environment (e.g., colors of foods and drinks; Spence et al., 2015;Foroni et al., 2016;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Higgins and Hayes, 2019;Spence, 2019). Meanwhile, shape-taste associations might be based on the semantic/emotional correspondence account, such as the hedonic dimension Deroy, 2012b, 2013a;Salgado-Montejo et al., 2015;Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2016bBlazhenkova and Kumar, 2018;Turoman et al., 2018;Motoki and Velasco, 2021). ...
Crossmodal correspondences between visual features (e.g., color/shape) and tastes have been extensively documented in recent years. Visual colors and shapes have been shown to consensually match to specific tastes. Meanwhile, individuals with autism spectrum disorder are reported to have atypical sensory processing and deficits in multisensory integration. However, the influence of autistic traits on the formation of such correspondences is relatively unknown. Here, we examined whether autistic traits could influence visual–taste associations using an online questionnaire survey among Japanese participants. The results showed that the participants exhibited strong color–taste, shape–taste, and shape–color associations, and the proportions of choosing the consensual color–taste/shape–color associations were significantly associated with autistic traits. The participants with higher autistic quotient scores chose fewer of the consensual color–taste/shape–color associations while there was no difference in choosing shape–taste associations. We interpreted the results as statistical learning with a reduced prior knowledge effect in participants with higher autistic quotient scores.
... Despite this assumption of bidirectionality in crossmodal correspondences, however, there is a large asymmetry between the number of studies investigating the influence of color on flavor perception, and those on how color might be influenced by flavor (Spence, 2019). Still, there are studies showing that certain basic tastes are indeed associated with colors (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018), as are linguistic references to taste , and that bidirectionality is present in other modalities (e.g., Mesfin et al., 2018). While relatively few endeavors have investigated bidirectional influences, even fewer-if at all-have aimed at investigating them in the context of cross-modal contrasts (i.e., contrasting the expectation from one modality to the experience in another modality; see Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015). ...
... For the visual stimuli red liquids were chosen (tomato, grape, rhubarb and cranberry juice) while the ingested liquids were associated with yellow colors (pineapple, banana, lemon and ginger flavor). After each exposure, we used a color wheel to rate color of the previously perceived liquid (see Saluja and Stevenson, 2018 for a similar measure). The measure was displayed on the HMD and captured the red, green and blue color dimensions. ...
... Despite the dominant role of vision in human multisensory experience (Posner et al., 1976;Spence et al., 2001), various aspects of visual perception have shown to be modulated by other senses when there is a strong prior association between the two (e.g., Shams et al., 2000;Repp and Penel, 2002;Robinson and Sloutsky, 2013), and clear color associations to specific flavor and tastes have been reported Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). However, much less is known about the potential of contrasting visuo-flavorous cues to modulate color perception (Spence, 2019). ...
It is well established that vision, and in particular color, may modulate our experience of flavor. Such cross-modal correspondences have been argued to be bilateral, in the sense that one modality can modulate the other and vice versa. However, the amount of literature assessing how vision modulates flavor is remarkably larger than that directly assessing how flavor might modulate vision. This is more exaggerated in the context of cross-modal contrasts (when the expectancy in one modality contrasts the experience through another modality). Here, using an embodied mixed reality setup in which participants saw a liquid while ingesting a contrasting one, we assessed both how vision might modulate basic dimensions of flavor perception and how the flavor of the ingested liquid might alter the perceived color of the seen drink. We replicated findings showing the modulation of flavor perception by vision but found no evidence of flavor modulating color perception. These results are discussed in regard to recent accounts of multisensory integration in the context of visual modulations of flavor and bilateral cross-modulations. Our findings might be important as a step in understanding bilateral visual and flavor cross-modulations (or the lack of them) and might inform developments using embodied mixed reality technologies.
... More recently, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) assessed colour-taste correspondences using real tastants, in part to see whether the mapping would differ from those obtained when taste words are used instead. However, the results were essentially the same, thus suggesting that people have similar correspondences with taste words as with actual tastants. ...
... Relevant here, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) recently tested 50 Australian participants with the five basic tastes delivered at three different stimulus intensities (cf. Wang et al., 2016). ...
... That said, it is worth noting that perceptual similarity, in terms of intensity matching, might well influence the saturation of colour given for tastes having differing intensities. Relevant to this point, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) reported that colour saturation was related to tastant concentration. Thus, while basic taste-hue mappings appear not to be driven by crossmodal similarity, the intensity of the hue may be (e.g., light pink for less sweet tastes/foods, and fuchsia/hot pink for very sweet tastes/foods). ...
For centuries, if not millennia, people have associated the basic tastes (e.g., sweet, bitter, salty, and sour) with specific colours. While the range of tastes may have changed, and the reasons for wanting to connect the senses in this rather surprising way have undoubtedly differed, there would nevertheless appear to be a surprisingly high degree of consistency regarding this crossmodal mapping among non-synaesthetes that merits further consideration. Traditionally, colour–taste correspondences have often been considered together with odour–colour and flavour–colour correspondences. However, the explanation for these various correspondences with the chemical senses may turn out to be qualitatively different, given the presence of identifiable source objects in the case of food aromas/flavours, but not necessarily in the case of basic tastes. While the internalization of the crossmodal statistics of the environment provides one appealing account for the existence of colour–taste correspondences, emotional mediation may also be relevant. Ultimately, while explaining colour–taste correspondences is of both theoretical and historical interest, the growing awareness of the robustness of colour–taste correspondences would currently seem to be of particular relevance to those working in the fields of design and multisensory experiential marketing.
... Relevant here, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) recently tested 50 Australian participants with the five basic tastes delivered at three different stimulus intensities (cf. Wang et al., 2016). ...
... Emotional mediation has been reported to play some small, but significant, role in explaining people's matching behavior for a number of the crossmodal correspondences reported to date (e.g., see Palmer, Schloss, Xu, & Prado-León, 2013;Schifferstein & Tanudjaja, 2004;Velasco et al., 2015;Wang & Spence, 2017, for a few representative examples). 4 That said, when Saluja and Stevenson (2018) asked their participants on what basis they were making their color choices when matching to tastants or taste words: 72% of participants claimed that they had based one or more of their choices on real-world associations, a couple of the participants (4%) said that they had responded on the basis of valence (read "emotional mediation"), while the remaining 24% of the participants were unable to say on what basis they had made their decisions. Of course, that said, it is possible that statistical analysis might well reveal that emotional mediation is playing a significant role in modulating the crossmodal correspondences that people make between tastes and colors, without the former necessarily being consciously aware that this is what is going on (Wardle, Mitchell, & Lovibond, 2007). ...
... At the same time, however, it is also worth highlighting the fact that color-flavor associations sit in a somewhat uneasy/unusual place with regard to the crossmodal correspondences more generally. This is because people can often point to specific stimuli that embody both the color and taste/flavor, thus making this kind of correspondence somewhat different from other crossmodal correspondences where no such obvious co-occurrence of features underlying the association can be postulated (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). 8 At the same time, however, food color also sits in a somewhat unusual position with respect to multisensory flavor perceptionbeing intrinsic to the food but not constitutive of its flavor. ...
Experimental psychologists, psychophysicists, food/sensory scientists, and marketers have long been interested in, and/or speculated about, what exactly the relationship, if any, might be between color and taste/flavor. While several influential early commentators argued against there being any relationship, a large body of empirical evidence published over the last 80 years or so clearly demonstrates that the hue and saturation, or intensity, of color in food and/or drink often influences multisensory flavor perception. Interestingly, the majority of this research has focused on vision's influence on the tasting experience rather than looking for any effects in the opposite direction. Recently, however, a separate body of research linking color and taste has emerged from the burgeoning literature on the crossmodal correspondences. Such correspondences, or associations, between attributes or dimensions of experience, are thought to be robustly bidirectional. When talking about the relationship between color and taste/flavor, some commentators would appear to assume that these two distinct literatures describe the same underlying empirical phenomenon. That said, a couple of important differences (in terms of the bidirectionality of the effects and their relative vs. absolute nature) are highlighted, meaning that the findings from one domain may not necessarily always be transferable to the other, as is often seemingly assumed.
... The diners were encouraged to arrange their spoons from left to right on the table in the order: salty, bitter, sour, and sweet. The diners' responses, which were presumably based on their colour-taste associations (see Saluja and Stevenson, 2018), were then used as data for experimental research on colour-flavour correspondences (e.g., see Spence et al., 2015). Notice how, in this case, the spherification effectively removed any olfactory cues to cue the guests as to which colour was matched to which taste/ flavoured solution, meaning that colour was pretty much the only cue that the diners had to go on when making their choices about the colour of taste. ...
... Of course, on occasion, shapes/textures might also be mapped onto tastes as much because of the distinctive foods that we associate with a particular shape/texture (cf. Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). In this regard, it is obviously hard to think of any texture/food that is more iconically sweet than cotton candy. ...
... Finally, at the end of the study, the participants were invited to describe the basis on which they had made their choices (cf. Saluja and Stevenson, 2018). ...
The first mechanical device for making cotton candy, sometimes referred to as candy floss in the UK and New Zealand, and fairy floss in Australia, was patented in North America in the closing years of the 19th century. Ever since, this popular technique for transforming a simple base ingredient into a much more voluminous spun sugar confection (often with the addition of food colouring and flavouring) has been a popular staple treat for children in many parts of the world at fairgrounds, funfairs, and the seaside. Intriguingly, however, this (in a sense) early molecular gastronomy, or modernist cooking technique (involving, as it does, the radical transformation of an ingredient) has, until recently, remained firmly in the category of ‘entertainment’ food. As such, the particular texture/appearance of this confection tends to be uniquely connected in many people's minds to childhood pleasure hence perhaps also triggering nostalgic thoughts. In recent decades, a number of famous chefs, such as Ferran Adrià and José Andres, have started to incorporate cotton candy into some of their sweet (and, on occasion, savoury) culinary creations. Here, we describe a novel amuse bouche, called ‘A study in white’ in which four differently-shaped/textured colourless white edible bites were served to diners in a restaurant setting. In this case, the latter were encouraged to try and determine which of the four so-called basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, or salty) they would associate with each texture/shape in the absence of any other sensory cue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chef chose cotton candy as the most unambiguous textural cue to connote sweetness, a cue that many of the diners immediately picked-up on. A follow-up online cross-cultural study revealed that both Spanish- and English-speaking participants (N = 339) associated candy floss more strongly with sweetness than even something that looked like a sugar cube.
... Consequently, there exists a gap in the literature regarding the developmental trajectory of crossmodal correspondences, particularly related to the sensory pairing of visual features (color/shape) and tastes (for developmental studies of other correspondences, see Simpson et al., 1956;Lewkowicz and Turkewitz, 1980;Ludwig and Simner, 2013;Pejovic and Molnar, 2017;Thomas et al., 2017;Chow et al., 2021;Speed et al., 2021). Previous research has found adults exhibiting specific color-taste/ shape-taste crossmodal correspondences, such as yellow-sour, redsweet, angular-sour/bitter, and round-sweet associations (Spence and Gallace, 2011;Spence and Ngo, 2012;Spence, 2012Spence, , 2019Bremner et al., 2013;Wan et al., 2014;Spence et al., 2015;Velasco et al., 2015;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Spence and Levitan, 2021). However, literature on younger participants, such as preschool children, is lacking. ...
... on our follow-up taste-comprehension task results, which indicated that the participants were able to correctly identify sour, salty, and bitter tastes, the observed color-taste correspondences may reflect a developmental change (Chen et al., 2021). A green-bitter association has been documented in adults across different cultures (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Chen et al., 2021). Interestingly, although the children also associated bitter taste with green peppers, they did not exhibit a significant bias toward linking bitter taste with green. ...
Introduction:
Adults possess a natural inclination to associate sensory cues derived from distinct modalities, such as the pairing of sweet with pink. However, studies exploring crossmodal correspondences in children, particularly in the sensory pairing of visual features and tastes, are scant, leaving unanswered questions regarding the developmental trajectory of crossmodal correspondences. The present study investigates whether Japanese preschool children demonstrate specific biases in shape-color, shape-taste, and color-taste associations.
Methods:
In a series of in-person experiments, 92 children between 3 to 6 years of age completed matching tasks utilizing paper stimuli.
Results:
Children exhibit crossmodal correspondences in shape-color (circle-red and asymmetrical star-yellow), shape-taste (triangle-salty and circle-sweet), and color-taste (yellow-sour, black-bitter, and pink-sweet) associations. Moreover, children's choices are not influenced by their individual preferences.
Discussion:
The crossmodal correspondences observed in this study have been observed in previous research on adults from the same (Japanese) culture, although adults showed more crossmodal correspondences than the children in this study (e.g., pink-circle, triangle-sour, and green-bitter). Thus, while some crossmodal correspondences emerge during childhood, others may require additional time to develop, thereby highlighting the importance of understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying crossmodal correspondences from an ontogenic perspective.
... When questioned, people tend to connect specific taste qualities with certain visual properties, such as colour attributes , geometric features (Velasco et al., 2016a), and visual textures (Barbosa Escobar et al., 2022) in systematic ways that are also generally consistent (or consensual, given that there is no objectively 'correct' answer; Koriat, 2008). Perhaps more surprisingly, presenting these visual stimuli has, on occasion at least, been shown to influence people's taste expectations (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Velasco et al., 2018a) and sometimes even their taste/flavour experiences after tasting the food accompanying or decorated by the said features (Rolschau et al., 2020). With these well-documented implications in mind, designers and researchers alike have understandably become increasingly interested in harnessing the effects of crossmodal correspondences in the development of more engaging consumer/user experiences (Elliott, 2012;Piqueras-Fiszman et al., 2012;Spence and Van Doorn, 2022;Velasco and Spence, 2019). ...
... It is worth noting that the associations between taste qualities and colour hues have been investigated using a diverse range of experimental paradigms (see Lee and Spence, 2022;Spence, 2021). These range from O'Mahony's (1983) study, which examined within-participant consistency in the pairing of colour and taste words, through Koch and Koch's (2003) exploration of the expected taste potency associated with specific colours, to the open-ended approach used by Saluja and Stevenson (2018), in which participants tasted pure solutions of each basic taste and were allowed to pick any possible colour from a colour wheel that they felt best matched the given taste. It should be recognised that while the most fundamental component of gustatory experience is likely its quality (i.e., the basic categories such as sweet and bitter, which is supported by subjective reports and physiological evidence; Chaudhari and Roper, 2010;Yarmolinsky et al., 2009), the perception of taste also involves attributes such as intensity, duration, and the variation/trajectory of these attributes before, during, and after consumption/tasting (Kelling and Halpern, 1983;Lenfant et al., 2009). ...
There has been a rapid recent growth in academic attempts to summarise, understand, and predict the taste profile matching complex images that incorporate multiple visual design features. While there is now ample research to document the patterns of vision-taste correspondences involving individual visual features (such as colour and shape curvilinearity in isolation), little is known about the taste associations that may be primed when multiple visual features are presented simultaneously. This narrative historical review therefore presents an overview of the research that has examined, or provided insights into, the interaction of graphic elements in taste correspondences involving colour, shape attributes, texture, and other visual features. The empirical evidence is largely in line with the predictions derived from the proposed theories concerning the origins of crossmodal correspondences ; the component features of a visual stimulus are observed to contribute substantially to its taste expectations. However, the taste associated with a visual stimulus may sometimes deviate from the taste correspondences primed by its constituent parts. This may occur when a new semantic meaning emerges as multiple features are displayed together. Some visual features may even provide contex-tual cues for observers, thus altering the gustatory information that they associate with an image. A theoretical framework is constructed to help more intuitively predict and conceptualise the overall influence on taste correspondences when visual features are processed together as a combined image.
... Magnum). In detail, the colour brown is used to indicate the chocolate flavour, and the colour yellow can often stimulate the appetite and is associated with a sweet taste (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Rosa et al., 2019b). ...
... Having a minimalistic design can at times appear unfinished or less than professional, potentially reducing external validity, but the aim here is to ensure a cleaner and clearer manipulation. The rest of the design details follow the design principles that can be found in Field Experiment stimuli development, for example, the colour yellow is chosen as the background for its commonality and benefits for both the stimulation of appetite and its association with sweet taste (Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Rosa et al., 2019b). The pre-test data was collected on the 5th of May 2020. ...
This thesis explores the use and effects of maximisers when included within Health and Nutrition (H&N) claims on food product packaging, with direct relevance for industry practice. Four separate studies were carried out in support of this thesis, one field study and three online experimental studies. The effects of the maximiser language device were investigated through an online field experiment, conducted through the Facebook Ads Manager platform, with the results demonstrating that the use of maximisers has a positive effect on product likeability among Facebook users. The first online experimental study then demonstrated the informality features of maximisers, and highlighted the importance of consumer perceived congruence bet ween the language used in advertising a product and the retail environment in which the product is encountered. Results from this study showed that the used of maximisers in H&N claims has a positive direct effect on product likeability. The second online experimental study extended on the concept of perceived congruence from the first online study, investigating the congruence between the use of language and customer comments and reviews, and its effect on perceptions of and purchase intentions towards a product. The study demonstrated the sincerity and affirmation features of maximisers, and showed the interaction of these features with online reviews, with the presence of maximisers having a moderating influence of product perceptions when bad reviews are present. The third and final online experimental study tested the effect of maximisers in a realistic setting, investigating the effects of cognitive load on evaluations of and purchase intentions towards a product. The findings showed maximisers work effectively when consumers are cognitively available, with a reversed effect apparent when consumers are subjected to a high cognitive load. The findings from the experimental studies have potential for impact in industry practice in the marketing and advertising of food products, and for the design of food packaging, as well as for policy-makers aiming to protect consumers and consumer interests related to food advertising.
... Similarly, adding green colouring significantly increased the detectability of sourness 26 . The association of red colour with sweetness and green with sourness is thought to be due to learned colour-flavour associations indicating that redness indicates ripeness or maturity of a fruit and green colour indicates immaturity lack of ripeness 20,[26][27][28][29] . Adding colours to a solution can also aid in people's flavour identification especially when atypical colour-taste combinations are presented. ...
... Adding colours to a solution can also aid in people's flavour identification especially when atypical colour-taste combinations are presented. For instance, flavoured solutions mixed with an atypical colour were harder to identify than those mixed with a typical colour 29,30 . Therefore, prior experiences with flavours influence the accuracy of people's flavour-colour identification responses 22 . ...
What we taste is affected by what we see, and that includes the colour, opacity, and shape of the food we consume. We report two experiments designed to investigate how the standard deviation (SD) of the luminance distribution of food images influences the perceived visual texture and the taste/flavour experience by using the latest Augmented Reality (AR) technology. We developed a novel AR system capable of modifying the luminance distribution of foods in real-time using dynamic image processing for simulating actual eating situations. Importantly, this form of dynamic image manipulation does not change the colour on the food (which has been studied extensively previously). Instead, the approach outlined here was used to change the SD of the luminance distribution of the food while keeping the chromaticity, the average luminance, and the skewness constant. We investigated the effects of changing the luminance SD distribution of Baumkuchen (a German baked cake) and tomato ketchup on visual perception, flavour expectations, and the ensuing taste experience. Participants looked at a piece of Baumkuchen (Experiment 1) or a spoonful of tomato ketchup (Experiment 2) having different luminance distributions and evaluated the taste on sampling the food. Manipulating the SD of the luminance distribution affected not only the expected taste/flavour of the food (e.g. expected moistness, wateriness and deliciousness), but also the actual taste properties on sampling the food itself. The novel food modification method and system outlined here can therefore potentially be used to control the taste/flavour of different foods crossmodally by means of modifying their appearance properties (specifically the SD of the luminance distribution while keeping other aspects of image statistics constant), and can do so in real time, without the need for food markers.
... Furthermore, while we observed differences in perceived tastes between the sweet and bitter soundtrack, it is possible we did not observe any differences in color because pink and yellow are not associated with similarly opposing tastes. While pink strongly communicates sweetness, yellow is not associated with bitterness (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Woods & Spence, 2016 There is a subtle point to be made here concerning the distinction between product-extrinsic (but still somehow product-related) cues and contextual cues. In the framework of the present study, sound and color cues were used as contextual factors. ...
... The control color was a pale yellow (R = 255, G = 255, B = 128, hue = 40, saturation = 240, and luminance = 180), designed to match the color of the beverage. The other color, a pale pink (R = 255, G = 174, B = 201, hue = 227, saturation = 240, and luminance = 202) was chosen, based on research(Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Woods & Spence, 2016), as the one best at communicating sweetness. We chose to assess the impact of color displayed on a screen as the contextual visual cue because it is increasingly common for people to look at devices while eating(Spence, Okajima, Cheok, Petit, & Michel, 2016). ...
The present study was designed to investigate the effect of the colour of the cup on sensory and hedonic judgments of specialty coffee by consumers. Altogether, 457 participants took part in one of three experiments. Crossmodal correspondences between the colour of the cup (i.e., an extrinsic cue) and the taste profile of the coffee served (i.e., the contents) were manipulated. Congruent and incongruent colour × taste pairings were created by using four cup colours (white, pink, yellow, and green) and two coffee profiles (sweet Brazilian and acidic Kenyan) to assess whether these manipulations would affect pre-and/or post-tasting ratings. Participants first rated their expectations of sweetness and acidity, and subsequently, their experience of those attributes on tasting the coffees, as well as rating their liking. The results revealed that the colour of the cup exerted a significant influence on both pre- and post-tasting ratings for all attributes measured. Liking ratings significantly decreased in incongruent pairing conditions – which also increased the unexpected acidity of the Kenyan coffee when tasted from the pink cup. Taken together, these results demonstrate for the first time that the colour of the cup significantly impacts sensory and hedonic judgements of specialty coffee. Our results also show that the contrast between expected and actual experience can result in a negative hedonic response and the enhancement of the unexpected sensory attribute. Implications for the development of coffee cups that can enhance the drinking experience are highlighted.
... Furthermore, while we observed differences in perceived tastes between the sweet and bitter soundtrack, it is possible we did not observe any differences in color because pink and yellow are not associated with similarly opposing tastes. While pink strongly communicates sweetness, yellow is not associated with bitterness (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Woods & Spence, 2016 There is a subtle point to be made here concerning the distinction between product-extrinsic (but still somehow product-related) cues and contextual cues. In the framework of the present study, sound and color cues were used as contextual factors. ...
... The control color was a pale yellow (R = 255, G = 255, B = 128, hue = 40, saturation = 240, and luminance = 180), designed to match the color of the beverage. The other color, a pale pink (R = 255, G = 174, B = 201, hue = 227, saturation = 240, and luminance = 202) was chosen, based on research(Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Woods & Spence, 2016), as the one best at communicating sweetness. We chose to assess the impact of color displayed on a screen as the contextual visual cue because it is increasingly common for people to look at devices while eating(Spence, Okajima, Cheok, Petit, & Michel, 2016). ...
It is well‐known that multiple sensory cues influence flavor perception and liking. The present study aimed to combine and compare the relative influences of product‐related and contextual factors on taste perception and liking, with a focus on the perception of sweetness. Participants tasted samples of the same base fruit beverage with one of three different levels of added aroma, while the contextual cues (either visual or auditory) were displayed simultaneously using iPads. The results revealed that both added aroma and background music significantly influenced participants' sweetness ratings, with a medium level of added aroma enhancing sweetness significantly as compared to no added aroma, and with the sweet‐congruent soundtrack enhancing perceived sweetness significantly as compared to the bitter‐congruent soundtrack. Moreover, there was a potentially additive effect from the combination of aroma and soundtrack. These results are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms underlying multisensory flavor perception.
Practical applications
Consumers are nearly always exposed to a multisensory environment whenever they consume food and drink. It is therefore important to acknowledge that, beyond the food itself, what people happen to be exposed to in the environment while eating or drinking can influence their multisensory flavor experiences as well. These results are of relevance for those working on understanding a theoretical model of human sweetness perception, as well as those working on the design of healthier, sugar‐reduced food products. Indeed, the knowledge that multiple sensory cues can, at least under the appropriate conditions, work in conjunction to deliver a greater modulation of perceived taste will allow designers to come up with more effective sugar‐reduced products without reducing consumer satisfaction. Moreover, the increasing prevalence of sensory and augmented reality applications means that manufacturers can now incorporate external visual and auditory content as part of the total multisensory product experience.
... The emotional mediation of color-taste correspondences As one starts to move further away from recognizable food color, emotional mediation increasingly comes to provide the link between color and flavor (e.g., Gilbert et al., 2016;Hanada, 2018; see also Fateminia et al., 2020;Gilbert et al., 1996;Raevskiy et al., 2022;Saluja, & Stevenson, 2018;van Beilen et al., 2011). In such cases, it is more likely that the meaning of color is linked to a particular emotion rather than to a specific taste or flavor. ...
While there has long been public concern over the use of artificial/synthetic food colors, it should be remembered that food and drink products (e.g., red wine) have been purposefully colored for millennia. This narrative historical review highlights a number of reasons that food and drink have been colored, including to capture the shopper's visual attention through to signaling the likely taste/flavor. Over the course of the last century, there has, on occasion, also been interest in the playful, or sometimes even deliberately discombobulating, use of food coloring by modernist chefs and others. The coloring (or absence of color) of food and drink can, though, sometimes also take on more of a symbolic meaning, and, in a few cases, specific food colors may acquire a signature, or branded (i.e., semantic) association. That said, with food color being associated with so many different potential "meanings," it is an open question as to which meaning the consumer will associate with any given instance of color in food, and what role context may play in their decision. Laboratory-based sensory science research may not necessarily successfully capture the full range of meanings that may be associated with food color in the mind of the consumer. Nevertheless, it seems likely that food color will continue to play an important role in dictating consumer behavior in the years to come, even though the visual appearance of food is increasingly being mediated via technological means, including virtual and augmented reality.
... In this respect, the mapping of color onto taste was analyzed in terms of different dimensions, such as their hue, saturation and brightness (see Spence et al., 2010, for review) and foreground-background color combinations (Spence, 2018;. The majority of the food color research has studied how each food color influenced taste and flavor perception of people (Lee et al., 2013;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Spence et al., 2010;Spence et al., 2015). Studies mostly investigated the responses of subjects to single or paired colored samples . ...
The aim of the present research was to explore consumers' color-harmony preferences on a food plate in relation to four different criteria; aesthetics, taste, healthiness, and satiety. With respect to this aim, four different food plates were designed based on four color-harmony types used in fine arts-analogous, complementary, triadic and quadratic. The sample of the study consisted of 1.162 participants from Turkey who responded to an online survey including pairs of color-combinations and reported their preferences in terms of the selected criteria. The results were analyzed using Cochran's Q Test and Scheffe Test. The results clearly demonstrated that people respond differently to meals comprising of different color-combinations. One major finding was that people seemed to find quadratic food-color harmony as the least tasty and healthy food even though they found it aesthetics. In correspondence to the results of several other studies, the present study found that attractiveness of food plates could be increased through the use of more colors to a certain level. Food plates with quadratic color-harmony were detected to be the least tasty and healthy and less filling by Turkish consumers.
... Several researchers have looked at crossmodal correspondences between colour hues and basic tastes bitter, sweet, sour, salty and umami (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Spence & Levitan, 2021;Spence et al., 2015;Spence, 2019). The emphasis has been on the first four and how people assess colour hues to match these basic tastes, either by asking them what colour goes best with a certain taste, or the other way around. ...
This paper questions whether manufacturers can utilize visual packaging cues, in particular colours and shapes, to communicate the intrinsic attributes of cheeses. While the existence of crossmodal correspondences between packaging shapes and tastes have been demonstrated in previous food studies, we still need knowledge about how the interaction of colour and shape of the packaging that the cheese is sold influence customers’ expectations of taste and liking. Throughout two studies, we illustrate that specific shapes and colours communicate certain cheese tastes. In study 1, we found that, while a mild tasting cheese is associated with round shapes, high colour brightness and low colour saturation, a sharp tasting cheese is associated with an angular shape, lower level of colour brightness and higher level of colour saturation. This knowledge can be utilized to communicate taste via the design of the packaging. In study 2, we moved on to test this via packaging. We found a round shaped packaging combined with high colour brightness and low colour saturation communicates a mild taste, whereas a triangular shape packaging combined with a low colour brightness/ high saturation signals a sharper tasting cheese. Moreover, a round packaging shape elicits the highest degree of liking. Our findings demonstrate that multiple sensory elements of a product’s packaging can enhance respondents’ taste expectations and expected liking of a product. In conclusion, this paper offers guidance to managers seeking to design packaging that communicates the flavour of food products, specifically for cheeses.
... Researchers continue to delineate associations between sensations from different modalities (Giannos et al., 2021;Mok et al., 2019;Motoki et al., 2020;Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). They also attempt to understand the mechanisms which underly these associations. ...
The present study investigated cross-modal associations between a series of paintings and sounds. We studied the effects of sound congruency (congruent vs. non-congruent sounds) and embodiment (embodied vs. synthetic sounds) on the evaluation of abstract and figurative paintings. Participants evaluated figurative and abstract paintings paired with congruent and non-congruent embodied and synthetic sounds. They also evaluated the perceived meaningfulness of the paintings, aesthetic value and immersive experience of the paintings. Embodied sounds (sounds associated with bodily sensations, bodily movements and touch) were more strongly associated with figurative paintings, while synthetic sounds (non-embodied sounds) were more strongly associated with abstract paintings. Sound congruency increased the perceived meaningfulness, immersive experience and aesthetic value of paintings. Sound embodiment increased immersive experience of paintings.
... The color of product packaging also plays a key role in promoting product sales (Kunz, Haasova, & Florack, 2020;Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Sugimori & Kawasaki, 2022). Gopikrishna and Kumar (2015) observed that about 90 % of rapid product evaluations are based on color alone. ...
Previous research has shown that people can generate expectations regarding the
color of a food packaging labeled with a certain flavor based on the color-flavor
associations formulated through long-term experiences, and rely on these color
expectations to guide their searches for packaged foods having certain flavor labels.
Here we report three experiments designed to examine whether people can also
generate such color expectations through short-term associations learning to guide
their product searches for novel labels irrelevant to the attributes of food products (e.g.,
constellation labels). The participants performed the visual search for the packaging
with the target constellation label before and after they had learned the color
associations for half of the constellation labels but not for the rest of the labels. In
Experiment 1, we found that the interaction of learning stage (before or after) and label
type (learned or unlearned) was significant in response time. After learning the colorconstellation
associations, they showed faster searches for the constellation labels
whose color associations they had learned (vs. unlearned). Experiment 2 excluded the
interference effect of familiarity in the learning task on the subsequent product search
gain to a certain degree. The incongruent color-constellation association stimuli were
added in the post-test phase in Experiment 3, which further verified that the
participants searched based on color expectations in the product search after the
explicit learning task. These results suggest that learning the color associations for
novel labels can facilitate people’s searches for these labels, presumably due to the
color expectations generated based on these associations. These findings provide
empirical evidence that expectations can be formulated based on recent experiences,
and shed light on the bright future of using novel labels in the marketing practice of
product differentiation.
... Therefore, we expected that colours would affect beer expectations. For example, beers with atypical colours such as blue, may be evaluated as sweeter than say green, because the latter may be associated with a sour and/or bitter taste, instead (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). ...
We evaluated how beer colour and glass type interact when it comes to forming beer expectations. Following previous research, we predicted that, given that colour is a dominant feature in food and beverage expectations, it would modulate the effects of glass type on beer expectations. One hundred and ninety-five participants from the United Kingdom took part in the experiment, which followed a 6 x 7 within-participants experimental design, with factors glass type (Pilsner, Pint, Tulip, Chalice, Weissbier, and Mug) and colour (yellow, blue, brown, orange, black, red, and green). Our results revealed that whilst colour influenced the sensory-discriminative, hedonic, and willingness to pay (WTP) ratings, glass type influenced all variables but intensity and WTP. Importantly, all the variables for which glass type had a main effect were followed by a significant interaction. The results indicate that, the extent to which an extrinsic beer element, namely glass, influences expectations, depends on the associations that people have with colour, an intrinsic beer property closely related to beer type. We discuss the implications of our results for the design and the development of beer expectations.
... It stands to reason that the associations studied here using temperature concepts would yield similar results as if we used the percept, as long as both retain the same connotation. For example, Saluja and Stevenson (2018) found that associations between real tastes and colours are closely matched by associations using colour and taste words. Similarly, Velasco, Woods, et al. (2015) found that people matched shapes with taste and taste concepts in a similar way. ...
Visual textures are critical in how individuals form sensory expectations about objects, which include somatosensory properties such as temperature. This study aimed to uncover crossmodal associations between visual textures and temperature concepts. In Experiment 1 (N = 193), we evaluated crossmodal associations between 43 visual texture categories and different temperature concepts (via temperature words such as cold and hot) using an explicit forced-choice test. The results revealed associations between striped, cracked, matted, and waffled visual textures and high temperatures and between crystalline and flecked visual textures and low temperatures. In Experiment 2 (N = 247), we conducted six Implicit Association Tests (IATs) pairing the two visual textures most strongly associated with low (crystalline and flecked) and high (striped and cracked) temperatures with the words cold and hot as per the results of Experiment 1. When pairing the crystalline and striped visual textures, the results revealed that crystalline was matched to the word cold, and striped was matched to the word hot. However, some associations found through the explicit test were not found in the IATs. In Experiment 3 (N = 124), we investigated how mappings between visual textures and concrete entities may influence crossmodal associations with temperature and these visual textures. Altogether, we found both a range of associations’ strengths and automaticity levels. Importantly, we found evidence of relative effects. Furthermore, some of these crossmodal associations are partly influenced by indirect mappings to concrete entities.
... For example, Europeans typically associate the smell/flavour of cinnamon with the colour brown (i.e., their association is with the dried spice) whereas North Americans often tend to associate it with the dark red of the hard-boiled cinnamon-flavoured sweets instead (cf. [30,64,109,118,132]). In other words, the colour associations that people hold with aromas or flavours may differ. ...
The colour and other visual appearance properties of food and drink constitute a key factor determining consumer acceptance and choice behaviour. Not only do consumers associate specific colours with particular tastes and flavours, but adding or changing the colour of food and drink can also dramatically affect taste/flavour perception. Surprisingly, even the colour of cups, cutlery, plates, packages, and the colour of the environment itself, have also been shown to influence multisensory flavour perception. The taste/flavour associations that we hold with colour are context-dependent, and are often based on statistical learning (though emotional mediation may also play a role). However, to date, neither the computational principles constraining these ubiquitous crossmodal effects nor the neural mechanisms underpinning the various crossmodal associations (or correspondences) that have been documented between colours and tastes/flavours have yet been established. It is currently unclear to what extent such colour-taste/flavour correspondences ought to be explained in terms of semantic congruency (i.e., statistical learning), and/or emotional mediation. Bayesian causal inference has become an increasingly important tool in helping researchers to understand (and predict) the multisensory interactions between the spatial senses of vision, audition, and touch. However, a network modelling approach may be of value moving forward. As made clear by this review, there are substantial challenges, both theoretical and practical, that will need to be overcome by those wanting to apply computational approaches both to understanding the integration of the chemical senses in the case of multisensory flavour perception, and to understanding the influence of colour thereon.
... In our case, it is possible that participants associated the high amount of green color with expectations of acidity of the coffee. Research suggests that there is a color-basic taste crossmodal correspondence between green and sourness/acidity Saluja and Stevenson, 2018) that can influence drinking experiences Carvalho and Spence, 2019). ...
With its origin-centric value proposition, the specialty coffee industry seeks to educate consumers about the value of the origin of coffee and how the relationship with farmers ensures quality and makes coffee a premium product. While the industry has widely used stories and visual cues to communicate this added value, research studying whether and how these efforts influence consumers’ experiences is scarce. Through three experiments, we explored the effect of images that evoke the terroir of coffee on the perception of premiumness. Our results revealed that online images that resembled the broad origin of coffee (i.e., a farm) could influence premiumness expectations of coffee (Experiment 1). Similarly, a virtual reality environment that depicted this broad origin (vs. a control but not a city atmosphere) could enhance the perception of coffee premiumness for non-expert consumers (Experiment 2) and the enjoyment of the experience for coffee professionals (Experiment 3). Importantly, we found that congruence between the coffee and the VR atmospheres mediated how much non-experts enjoyed the experience (Experiment 2). VR atmospheres also influenced expectations of sweetness and acidity for non-experts (Experiment 2). These findings serve as a steppingstone for further exploration of the effects of congruence between visual cues and product/brand attributes on premiumness expectations and perception, and more generally on consumer experience. From a practical standpoint, this study provides insights into key aspects for the development of immersive virtual product experiences.
... It is important to note that we applied a semantic (word) equivalence of taste instead of real taste stimuli. Although some studies have demonstrated that visual stimuli of taste-related words or pictures may activate the gustatory cortex (Piqueras-Fiszman & Spence, 2015;Saluja & Stevenson, 2018), the areas activated by visual taste and real taste are not the same. Hence, we need to conclude the taste experience carefully here. ...
Affective pictures have been shown to influence taste perceptions under various experimental paradigms. How are affective visual inputs associated with different tastes? More specifically, are there associations between different types of affective pictures and taste words? Here, we undertook a systematic study aimed at delineating the relationship between affective pictures and taste words. Pictures from the Chinese Affective Picture System (CAPS) and other online websites were selected, evaluated and reorganized according to the participants' hedonic and arousal ratings. The pictures were then divided into positive, neutral and negative groups according to their hedonic ratings. Each affective group was subdivided into mild, medium and strong sensations according to the arousal ratings. During the experiments, the participants were shown the pictures and were instructed to choose one of the four taste words (sour/sweet/bitter/salty) as an immediate response. The results showed that positive affective pictures were significantly associated with the word sweet. When the arousal of the positive pictures increased, the choice ratio of “sweet” increased. Negative pictures, with low to medium arousal, were significantly associated with “sour”. Negative and neutral pictures, with strong arousal, were significantly associated with “bitter”. Neutral pictures, with mild to medium arousal, were not significantly associated with any taste word.
... Some research on cross-modal correspondence is based on mental representations without actual experiences of sensory stimuli. Word matching has been used to investigate mental representations of temperature-based or taste-based correspondence (e.g., Velasco et al., 2015;Motoki et al., 2019b) because previous research suggests that cross-modal correspondence may result even when sensing words are used without sensory experiences Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2018bSaluja and Stevenson, 2018). ...
Temperature is an important characteristic of food and drink. In addition to food-intrinsic temperature (i.e. serving temperature), consumers often experience food-extrinsic temperature (e.g. physical warmth). Emerging research on cross-modal correspondence has revealed that people reliably associate temperature with other sensory features. Building on the literature on cross-modal correspondence and sensation transference theory, the present study aimed to reveal mental representations of temperature–taste correspondence and cross-modal mental representations influencing corresponding sensory/hedonic perceptions of beverages, with a focus on manipulating food-extrinsic warmth. To reveal mental representations of temperature–taste correspondence, Experiment 1 investigated whether temperature words (warm, cool) are associated with sensory/hedonic attributes (e.g. sweet, sour, salty, bitter). The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that warm (vs. cool) was matched more with saltiness, tastiness, healthfulness, and preference (intention to buy), whereas cool (vs. warm) was matched more with sourness and freshness. Experiment 2 assessed whether cross-modal mental representations influence corresponding sensory/hedonic perceptions of beverages. The participants wore hot and cold pads and rated sensory/hedonic attributes of Japanese tea (Experiment 2a) or black coffee (Experiment 2b) before and after tasting it. The results of Experiment 2a demonstrated that physical warmth (vs. coldness) increased healthfulness and the intention to buy Japanese tea. The results of Experiment 2b did not reveal any effects of physical warmth on sensory/hedonic ratings. These findings provide evidence of taste–temperature correspondence and provide preliminary support for the influence of food-extrinsic warmth on taste attributes related to positivity.
... Fourth, actual taste stimuli were not used in our study, so we could not investigate the relationship between such taste stimuli and the shape stimuli. The decision not to use actual taste stimuli was based on previous crossmodal studies that similarly did not include actual sensory stimuli (Motoki et al., 2019b;Saluja and Stevenson, 2018;Spence et al., 2015;Velasco et al., 2015Velasco et al., , 2018. The results of these studies suggested that crossmodal correspondences occur even when only word stimuli related to sensory perceptions are used. ...
Eating disorder tendencies are psychological characteristics that are prevalent in
healthy young females and are known to be among the risk factors for eating disorders
such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. People with greater eating disorder tendencies
strongly associate sweet and fatty foods with weight gain and strictly avoid consuming
such foods. However, little is known about how eating disorder tendencies influence
the association between taste and body-shape impression. Research on crossmodal
correspondences suggests that people preferentially associate sweet tastes with round
shapes, and individual differences affect the degree of such associations. This study
investigates how the degree of taste-shape matching is related to eating disorder
tendencies with a preliminary investigation of what mediates this relationship. Two
experiments were conducted: in Experiment 1, healthy participants rated the degree of
association between basic taste words (sweet/sour/salty/bitter) and roundness of
shape and subsequently completed questionnaires addressing eating disorder
tendencies. In Experiment 2, participants answered additional questionnaires
addressing obsessiveness, dichotomous thinking, and self-esteem. The results of
Experiment 1 indicated a positive correlation between drive for thinness, which is one
indicator of an eating disorder tendency, and the degree of matching sweetness to
round shape. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and revealed the
mediating effect of obsessiveness. These findings suggest a relationship between
individual differences in taste-shape matching and eating disorder tendency and the
preliminary mediating role of obsessiveness. The present study provides new insight
into the role of sweet-round matching in eating disorder tendencies and the associated
psychological mechanisms.
... Indeed, one might consider the crossmodal associations between colour and basic taste, or flavours, in much the same light [100,135]. That is, people may well associate a pinkish-red colour with sweetness not because they perceive the component stimuli to be similar, but rather because, in the absence of any other information, they expect pinkish-red foods to taste sweet, as a result of a learned association [101,[135][136][137]. ...
This review summarizes the various outcomes that may occur when two or more elements are paired in the context of flavour perception. In the first part, I review the literature concerning what happens when flavours, ingredients, and/or culinary techniques are deliberately combined in a dish, drink, or food product. Sometimes the result is fusion but, if one is not careful, the result can equally well be confusion instead. In fact, blending, mixing, fusion, and flavour pairing all provide relevant examples of how the elements in a carefully-crafted multi-element tasting experience may be combined. While the aim is sometimes to obscure the relative contributions of the various elements to the mix (as in the case of blending), at other times, consumers/tasters are explicitly encouraged to contemplate/perceive the nature of the relationship between the contributing elements instead (e.g., as in the case of flavour pairing). There has been a noticeable surge in both popular and commercial interest in fusion foods and flavour pairing in recent years, and various of the ‘rules’ that have been put forward to help explain the successful combination of the elements in such food and/or beverage experiences are discussed. In the second part of the review, I examine the pairing of flavour stimuli with music/soundscapes, in the emerging field of ‘sonic seasoning’. I suggest that the various perceptual pairing principles/outcomes identified when flavours are paired deliberately can also be meaningfully extended to provide a coherent framework when it comes to categorizing the ways in which what we hear can influence our flavour experiences, both in terms of the sensory-discriminative and hedonic response.
... To date, the majority of the research in this area has tended to focus on crossmodal correspondences between auditory and visual stimuli (Evans and Treisman, 2010;Parise and Spence, 2012;see Marks, 2004;Spence, 2011Spence, , 2018a, for reviews). However, a rich variety of robust crossmodal correspondences have now been demonstrated between various other pairs of sensory modalities (e.g., Parise, 2016), such as, for example, between colours and tastes (e.g., Saluja and Stevenson, 2018; see Spence, 2019a;Spence et al., 2015, for reviews) and olfactory stimuli (e.g., Demattè et al., 2006;Gilbert et al., 1996;Kim, 2013;Levitan et al., 2014;Schifferstein and Tanudjaja, 2004;Stevenson et al., 2012). ...
The last few years have seen an explosive growth of research interest in the crossmodal correspondences, the sometimes surprising associations that people experience between stimuli, attributes, or perceptual dimensions, such as between auditory pitch and visual size, or elevation. To date, the majority of this research has tended to focus on audiovisual correspondences. However, a variety of crossmodal correspondences have also been demonstrated with tactile stimuli, involving everything from felt shape to texture, and from weight through to temperature. In this review, I take a closer look at temperature-based correspondences. The empirical research not only supports the existence of robust crossmodal correspondences between temperature and colour (as captured by everyday phrases such as ‘red hot’) but also between temperature and auditory pitch. Importantly, such correspondences have (on occasion) been shown to influence everything from our thermal comfort in coloured environments through to our response to the thermal and chemical warmth associated with stimulation of the chemical senses, as when eating, drinking, and sniffing olfactory stimuli. Temperature-based correspondences are considered in terms of the four main classes of correspondence that have been identified to date, namely statistical, structural, semantic, and affective. The hope is that gaining a better understanding of temperature-based crossmodal correspondences may one day also potentially help in the design of more intuitive sensory-substitution devices, and support the delivery of immersive virtual and augmented reality experiences.
... The participants saw brand names, and had to rate the expected intensity of each taste for each of the stimuli. They responded with the taste that they expected such a product to have correspondences has used actual tastants (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;, we used taste words instead. Although there are more basic tastes including umami (Rosenstein, & Oster, 1988), we used the four most familiar basic tastes based on the previous studies using basic taste words (e.g., Spence, Wan, Woods, Velasco, Deng, Youssef, & Deroy, 2015;Velasco, Woods, Hyndman, & Spence, 2015;Velasco, Woods, Marks, Cheok, & Spence, 2016). ...
Product names can be developed to effectively convey specific sensory attributes to the consumer. Most of previous research on crossmodal correspondences has shown that people selectively associate words (e.g., ‘Maluma’, ‘Takete’) with taste attributes. To provide practical insights for naming new products in the food industry, it is important to obtain a more nuanced understanding concerning those properties of speech sounds (i.e., vowels, consonants) influencing people’s taste expectations. In this study, we investigated taste-speech sound correspondences by systematically manipulating the vowels and consonants comprising fictitious brand names. Based on the literature on crossmodal correspondences and sound symbolism, we investigated which vowels/consonants contribute more to the association between speech sounds and tastes (sweet/sour/salty/bitter). Across three experiments, we systematically varied vowels (front: [i][e], back: [a][u][o]), and affricate consonants (e.g., fricative: [f][s], stop: [p][t]) as well as voiced/voiceless consonants (e.g., voiced: [b][d], voiceless: [f][k]). Japanese participants were presented with brand names and had to evaluate the taste that they expected the product to have. The results revealed that: (1) front (back) vowels increased expected sweetness (bitterness); (2) fricative (stop) consonants increased expected sweetness (saltiness/bitterness), (3) voiceless (voiced) consonants increased expected sweetness/sourness (saltiness/bitterness). Moreover, consonants, which were pronounced first in the brand names, exerted a greater influence on expected taste than did the vowels. Taken together, these findings help advance theoretical foundations in sound-taste correspondences as well as provide practical contributions to the food practitioners to develop predictive product names.
... According to international guidelines, the consumption of leafy greens constitutes an important element in maintaining a healthy balanced diet. At the same time, however, it is worth reiterating that these foods do not have an especially attractive sensorial profilegreen the dominant colour tends to be associated with bitterness, a generally-disliked taste (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Spence et al., 2015), at least when green has been presented in the form of a drink or as an abstract colour patch or word. It is possible though that the associations that consumers have with green in the context of salad leaves might be more with 'fresh' and 'healthy' than necessarily with bitter. ...
According to nutritional recommendations, the majority of us should be eating more leafy (salad) greens in order to maintain a healthier and more balanced diet. Yet the overwhelming evidence suggests that despite widespread publicity, most people consistently fail to meet the guidelines. This review assesses the multisensory appeal of leafy (salad) greens at various stages of the consumer journey from initial purchase in store through presentation in a dish/meal, and eventual consumption. The review identifies the current limited sensory appeal of leafy (salad) greens, and highlights a number potential means to enhance their multisensory desirability, be it in the store or else on the plate/in the bowl in the future. The argument is made that the latter approach likely represents a more promising means of ‘nudging’ the consumer toward a more balanced and healthy diet than current informational campaigns and/or the publicizing of nutritional guidelines.
... Over time, the experienced wine taster can build up associations between wine colour and the correlated structure of aromas and flavours to be stored in semantic memory (e.g., , although there also exist associations between some wine odors and colours in social drinkers, see Heatherly, Dein, Munafo September 2019September 2019. After all, robust colour-taste associations (such as the association between the colour red and sweetness) has been well-known in sensory science over the last 80 years (see Spence, 2019, for a recent review), with such associations driven by repeated associations (Higgins & Hayes, 2019) as well as emotional valence (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). These associations, while typically useful, can also be disruptive when visual cues bias sensory perception, especially as colour characteristics can be independent of wine quality and typicity (Valentin, Parr, Peyron, Grose, & Ballester, 2016). ...
Wine colour carries a myriad of meanings regarding the provenance and expected sensory qualities of a wine. That meaning is presumably learnt through association, and part of a wine taster's skill comes from being able to decode information that can be discerned in subtle variations in the colour of the wine that they drink/evaluate. However, reliance on colour means that wine tasters, especially experts, often exhibit colour-induced olfactory biases. The present study assesses how wine colour - specifically the pink hue of rosé wines - can influence both the perceived aroma and flavour in a large sample of wine novices and experts. Participants (N = 168) tasted three wines - a white wine (W), a rosé wine (R), and the white wine dyed to match the rosé (Ŕ) - and freely selected three aroma and three flavour descriptors from a list. They also rated wine liking, flavour intensity, and description difficulty for each wine. Linguistic analysis demonstrated that those with wine tasting experience judged Ŕ to be much more similar to R than to W, even though Ŕ and W were the same. Moreover, red fruit descriptors were attributed to both R and Ŕ, especially in terms of flavour. Quantitative ratings revealed that Ŕ was liked less than W or R, and participants found it more difficult to describe Ŕ than R. These results demonstrate that while participants found the dyed rosé somehow different from the undyed wines, they nevertheless used the red fruit terms to describe its aroma and flavour. The implications of such results in terms of cognitive representations of wine and the role of sensory expectations are discussed.
... To provide a deeper understanding of the influence of such maturational processes, future research is necessary to examine learning related aspects like educational performance or intelligence quotient to investigate the cognitive processes underlying the development of the investigated crossmodal correspondences. Additionally, in order to provide hints on the prior information children might use to accomplish the task, it would be interesting to directly ask them on which basis they chose the shapes corresponding to the pure tones (see Saluja and Stevenson, 2018 for the association between color and taste). ...
Developmental studies have shown that children can associate visual size with non-visual and apparently unrelated stimuli, such as pure tone frequencies. Most research to date has focused on audiovisual size associations by showing that children can associate low pure tone frequencies with large objects, and high pure tone frequencies with small objects. Researchers relate these findings to coarser association, i.e., less precise associations for which binary categories of stimuli are used such as in the case of low versus high frequencies and large versus small visual stimuli. This study investigates how finer, more precise, crossmodal audiovisual associations develop during primary school age (from 6 to 11 years old). To unveil such patterns, we took advantage of a range of auditory pure tones and tested how primary school children match sounds with visually presented shapes. We tested 66 children (6-11 years old) in an audiovisual matching task involving a range of pure tone frequencies. Visual stimuli were circles or angles of different sizes. We asked participants to indicate the shape matching the sound. All children associated large objects/angles with low pitch, and small objects/angles with high pitch sounds. Interestingly, older children made greater use of intermediate visual sizes to provide their responses. Indeed, audiovisual associations for finer differences between stimulus features such as size and pure tone frequencies, may develop later depending on the maturation of supramodal size perception processes. Considering our results, we suggest that audiovisual size correspondences can be used for educational purposes by aiding the discrimination of sizes, including angles of different aperture. Moreover, their use should be shaped according to children's specific developmental stage.
... Specifically, brewing companies produce German-style lagers that are low in alcohol and bitterness, and light in colour (e.g., Pabst Blue Ribbon®, Heineken®). Thus, consumers associate light-coloured beers with low bitterness (i.e., they have, in a sense, picked up on the natural statistics of the drinking environment; see Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). ...
This review critically evaluates the literature concerning the impact of visual appearance cues (including colour, foam, and cloudiness) on people's perception in the beer category. The authors assess both the sensory expectations that are elicited by the visual appearance of beer, and the extent to which those expectations carry-over to influence the actual tasting experience. Beer is a particularly intriguing category to study since the differing production rules in different countries mean that there is not always the same scope to modify the colour in order to meet perceived consumer demands. What is more, there is currently disagreement in the literature concerning the impact of beer colour and foam on people's expectations of beer prior to tasting, and their multisensory flavour perception on tasting. Given how much beer is consumed annually, it is surprising that more research has not been published that assesses the undoubtedly important role of visual appearance in this beverage category. Part of the reason for this may simply be that it is difficult to create consistent experimental stimuli given the rapid transition of the head of the beer post-serving.
... For example, the color red may increase approach motivation in a romantic context (Meier, D'Agostino, Elliot, Maier, & Wilkowski, 2012), or it can be associated with imminent danger and avoidance motivations in the presence of threat-related words (Pravossoudovitch, Cury, Young, & Elliot, 2014). Moreover, in a food context, red has been associated with sweetness levels: a vision-taste cross-modal association (Jonhson, Dzendolet, & Clydesdale, 1983;Koch & Koch, 2003;Saluja & Stevenson, 2018;Velasco, Woods, Marks, Cheok, & Spence, 2016;Wei, Ou, Luo, & Hutchings, 2012;Woods, Marmolejo-Ramos, Velasco, & Spence, 2016). Cross-modal associations refer to individuals' tendency to automatically match the information presented in one sensory modality (e.g., vision) to that presented in another modality (e.g., taste) to enhance perceptual experience (Spence, Senkowski, & Röder, 2009). ...
... 2 Each of the courses on the menu offered insights into the world of crossmodal correspondences, which often underpin our interpretation and enjoyment of eating and dining (see Saluja and Stevenson, 2018), this particular dish was focused on sound and flavour correlations. A carefully selected piece of music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bznD_ySyw8M) and the accompanying fMRI visualisation was used as inspiration by the Kitchen Theory chefs to design both a flavour profile and visual presentation. ...
Analysis of people's preferences concerning the orientation of paintings has revealed robust evidence for what is known as the aesthetic oblique effect. That is, horizontal/vertical lines are preferred, aesthetically-speaking, over oblique lines in painting by both artists and those who view their works. At the same time, however, researchers have also demonstrated the existence of a preference for linear food elements (be they presented on the plate or on product packaging) when shown ascending to the right (rather than the left, or else when presented in any another orientation). Here, we report on three online studies, the first demonstrating that people visually prefer an edible version of one of Kandinsky's paintings when presented horizontally (while preferring either the horizontal or vertical orientation for the painting on which the dish was based; Experiment 1). In a second study, a similar preference for the horizontal/vertical alignment of a much simpler langoustine dish, with a single dominant linear element, was also documented. This preference for the canonical orientations was also reported in a third experiment with another visually-simple chef-prepared dish. Taken together, these results therefore emphasize the similarity in aesthetic preferences for the horizontal/vertical alignment when viewing either paintings or certain chef-prepared plates of food. At the same time, however, these results also raise the question of what factors determine whether the horizontal/vertical or the ascending to the right preference dominates when plating food.
... The association correspondences (red-triangle, blue-square, yellow-circle) are named after Jacobsen's (2002) suggestion that individuals choose combinations based on specific real-world object associations relevant to Jacobsen's German sample (e.g., sun-yellow circle, warning signal-red triangle; cf. Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). ...
Research on the topic of colour–shape correspondences started in the early 20th century with the Bauhaus artist Wassily Kandinsky. However, more recently, the topic has been examined using the empirical framework of crossmodal correspondences research. The field remains one in which consistent results and generalisable hypotheses about the existence and nature of colour–shape correspondences are lacking. The replicability and consistency of findings concerning colour–shape correspondences are examined in three online colour–shape matching experiments using the same procedure and study design while varying the sets of shape stimuli that are evaluated. Participants matched one of 36 colours to each shape as well as made preference and arousal appraisal ratings for each of the shapes and colours. The complexities of analysing colour–shape correspondence data are discussed and illustrated by classifying and analysing shape and colours in a variety of different ways, including using continuous perceptual and objective measures. Significant colour–shape associations were found. However, as hypothesised, limited consistent results in regard to what perceptual shape characteristics predicted colour choices were documented across the three stimuli sets. This was the case both within and across different analysis methods. The factors that may be responsible for these inconsistencies are critically discussed. Intriguingly, however, evidence for emotional mediation, whereby shape and colour liking and arousal appraisals appear to influence the colour–shape correspondences made by participants, was found across all three experiments.
... Amongst the strong colour-taste correspondences, sour has been associated with yellow and green whereas sweet has been associated with pink and/or red instead. Interestingly, in addition to colour-taste pairings, the saturation of the colour also appears to be related to tastant concentration (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). ...
This review summarizes the latest evidence concerning the impact of the colour, shape, texture, weight, and other material properties of the drinking receptacle on the perception of coffee. The colour of the cup, for instance, has been shown to prime notions of sweetness (e.g., pink cup) or acidity (e.g., yellow or green cup) that may carry over to influence the tasting experience. Meanwhile, the shape and surface feel of the drinking vessel have also been shown to exert a profound influence over the perceived aroma/taste of coffee. Given that the various sensory attributes of the drinking vessel can exert such a striking influence over the drinking experience, the challenge, moving forward, is to optimize the design of the receptacle in order to enhance the multisensory tasting experience for the consumer. Given that different styles/varieties of specialty coffee have different dominant/desirable qualities (e.g., acidity/sweetness), in the future, the design of coffee cups may need to be customized for different coffee drinking experiences (e.g., origin or roast), much as seen in the world of fine wine (with different glasses for different grape varieties).
... From the second session, chi-square tests were used to look at differences in color choice across cooling/coldness intensities and differences in colors chosen for the mint odor. Colors were defined by hue value ranges in accordance to past studies using free-choice association: 285°-15°(red), 45°-75°(yellow), 76°-149°(green), 150°-255°(red), and all other hues values were other (Saluja & Stevenson, 2018). However, if no hue and only brightness was adjusted, responses were coded as white or black. ...
Chemesthesis, along with taste and olfaction, is a primary component of flavor that engages the trigeminal system through specific chemical binding. For instance, many gums or confectionaries incorporate chemical cooling agents, such as Wilkinson Sword (WS) compounds, to create the sensation of coldness. The current study was designed to evaluate crossmodal associations of color and aroma with the chemesthetic perception of cooling. A “minty” and non-odorized set of confectionary stimuli, colored green, blue or white, with moderate cooling properties (with WS-3) were used in this study. In the first session, participants were randomly presented a stimuli and asked to rate several attributes including its cooling intensity on a generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS). In the second session, the same participants were asked to relate cooling levels to different colors and which color relates to the “minty” odor. Additionally, open-ended reasons were given for association choices. Appearance and odor influenced the intensity of cooling sensation. In particular, the odorized and blue samples were rated as cooler than the non-odorized and other colored samples, respectively. The follow-up session confirms blue as a color associated with cooling properties, especially cool objects/abstract concepts. Meanwhile, odor’s enhancement on cooling sensation may be more perceptual in nature through affective matching from enhanced flavor.
Dans l’étude du comportement alimentaire, la prise en compte du contexte de consommation au sein du cadre expérimental assure la capacité des données collectées à être généralisées au fonctionnement humain dans son monde réel. À travers cette thèse, nous testons la validité de l’outil de « réalité virtuelle » à amener le consommateur, par une activité-sensorimotrice en reconstruction numérique de l’épisode de consommation, à un comportement représentatif de sa réalité. Pour évaluer cet outil, nous nous en référons à l’état de présence du consommateur, son sentiment d’existence au sein de l’environnement virtuel (d’être là où il agit). Nous examinons cette immersion virtuelle, dans, sa forme (enrichissement perceptif du contexte), son contenu (identification du réel à reproduire), jusqu’à la crédibilité globale de l’expérience de consommation (intégration de l’aliment au monde virtuel). Les résultats de six études sont ici présentés. En définitive, la réalité virtuelle se présente comme un outil méthodologique valide pour recontextualiser le cadre expérimental des sciences « sensorielles et consommateurs ». Malgré son caractère numérique, elle apporte un fort sentiment de présence, l’illusion « physique » d’un lieu, dans une interaction cross-modale guidée par la modalité visuelle. Cette forte illusion la mène au niveau d’un environnement physiquement reconstruit. Sur un plan plus global, l’enrichissement perceptif assure ici le contrôle de l’immersion dans un épisode précis de consommation. Nous identifions également des clés de lecture du contexte réel pour la sélection des éléments à implémenter. Ces éléments clés entourant le scénario de consommation favoriseront l’évocation de ce qui ne peut être recréé. L’intégration de l’aliment au monde virtuel soulève de nouveaux défis, mais cette technologique est en constante évolution. Sur une catégorisation « physique » de l’aliment, nous validons ici l’intégration d’aliments solides « non-déformables », tel que les « cookies », au monde virtuel, pour une expérience fidèle de dégustation. La réalité virtuelle mérite néanmoins encore un temps de développement, pour se généraliser à une plus vaste diversité alimentaire. Ainsi, elle s’ouvrira à de nouvelles perspectives, telles que celles de rétablir le dialogue avec le consommateur, plus en amont, en phases de conception des produits alimentaires.
The color of food packaging has an important influence on consumers' purchasing decisions. This study takes popcorn packaging as an example to explore the impact of packaging color on consumers' taste perception and preference evaluation. Sixty participants were invited to participate in the experiment. Four experimental package design colors (red, blue, yellow, and white) and three popcorn tastes (sweet, salty, and tasteless) were used to evaluate whether the pretasting and posttasting evaluations were affected by package color and product taste. The results of this study indicated that (1) there is a contrast between expected psychological and actual perceptions and that (2) yellow and red packaging are suitable for a sweet product, blue is suitable for a salty product, and white is suitable for a tasteless product. The research results can help designers and manufacturers understand the effects of packaging color and achieve the design conditions required by consumers. Packaging color affects consumer taste perception and preference.
People tend to associate colors with specific flavors, establishing color–flavor associations, and people can generate flavor expectations about foods and beverages based on color. Recent research has shown that participants can generate color expectations about packaged food based on a flavor label to guide the visual search for this flavor. However, it remains unclear how flavors modulate color processing. Here, we conducted two visual search experiments to address this issue.
In Experiment 1, we used a peristaltic pump to deliver a dose of fruit-flavored beverage or flavorless purified water to the participants’ mouths, followed by a shaped-based visual search task. Half of the participants were informed that the strawberry and pineapple flavors were always followed by targets in the associated colors, while the rest of them were informed that the strawberry and pineapple flavors were always followed by targets in the non-associated colors. The flavorless water was not predictive of the color of the target. Their visual searches were faster when the target appeared in a flavor-associated color or when the target appeared in a non-associated color but the flavor-associated color was absent from the display. By contrast, the flavor cue did not facilitate visual search if the distractor was presented in the flavor-associated color, thus indicative of prioritized attention to this associated color.
Considering that the participants were exposed to the flavor labels when they received their instructions at the beginning of Experiment 1, we conducted Experiment 2 to rule out the possible influence of flavor labels. Experiment 2 was performed with the same methods as in Experiment 1 except for one important difference. The participants were not given information regarding the specific flavors. They were only informed that flavors A and B were always followed by red- and yellow-colored targets, respectively. The flavors were always followed by targets in the associated colors for half of the participants and by non-associated colors for the rest of the participants. We obtained similar result patterns as in Experiment 1.
The results of these two experiments consistently revealed an attentional bias toward flavor-associated colors in the shape-based visual search. These findings show how flavor cues could modulate visual information processing. Our findings provide empirical evidence regarding color-flavor interactions by showing the influence of gustatory cues on visual attention, which allows us to further investigate the underlying mechanisms and neural basis of crossmodal influence in future research.
People are sensitive to bitter taste because bitterness serves as a warning sign of poisons. Previous research reported that taste receptors in the oral cavity are more sensitive to bitter taste than to sweet taste. Other sensory systems, i.e., auditory, olfactory, tactile and visual, have also been shown to be involved in the sense of taste, a phenomenon known as cross-modal correspondence. It has been shown that the color of food or its packaging influences taste expectation and perception. However, it remains unknown whether cross-modal correspondence between visual information and taste depends on the degree of bitterness. Here, we investigated the effect of background color on taste using chocolate and green tea with varying bitterness levels. Undergraduate students were asked to evaluate how bitter and how sweet milk chocolate (Experiment 1) or less bitter and bitter chocolate (Experiment 2) tasted when served from black or pink wrapping paper. In Experiment 3, undergraduate students were ask to evaluate how bitter and how sweet less bitter and bitter green tea tasted when served from a clear blue or a clear cup. The experiments showed that when chocolate and green tea were bitter, visual information influenced taste evaluation. In contrast, no visual effect on taste was seen for less bitter chocolate, milk chocolate or less bitter green tea. The results suggest the possibility that cross-modal correspondence of visual information to taste changes depending on the degree of bitterness.
Baby leafy greens are one of the fastest growing segments of the salad green market. Baby leafy greens are generally more mild tasting than their fully‐mature counterparts. Nevertheless, a diversity of plant species can be grown as baby greens, which exhibit a wide range of sensory attributes. Sensory profiles of baby leaf varieties have not been well described in the literature. This study aimed to describe the differences between several baby leafy green varieties from the plant family Brassicaceae and those which were non‐ Brassicaceae , and to compare two descriptive methods, traditional descriptive analysis (DA) and Napping, a rapid profiling technique. Both methods used the same trained panelists. In the first study, the panel ( n = 11) developed a lexicon for and evaluated four samples grown in a controlled aeroponic environment. In the second study, 12 commercially available samples were evaluated with DA ( n = 8) and Napping ( n = 11). Panelists identified differences in the pungency, bitterness, and ‘‘green’’ attributes across all samples. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to model associations between the samples and the sensory attributes. The PCA extracted three factors. PC1 ranged from pungent qualities to sweet/grassy, PC2 included green color, and PC3 included saltiness and sourness. The Napping showed similar sample separation (RV = 0.67), but included relevant textural terms (‘‘chewy’’; ‘‘rubbery’’) not used in the DA. The current lexicon can be applied to a large range of baby leafy greens. Napping showed good correspondence with DA and can be deployed with agricultural products where time and other resources may be limited.
Practical Application
Sensory evaluation methods have traditionally been applied in the food industry with processed products.While traditional methods such as descriptive analysis have been used to profile products, rapid and inexpensive profiling methods should be screened for their value in describing agricultural products. The results of this study can be applied to breeding and grow‐out programs to aid in optimization of the processing,storage, and quality control for the rapidly expanding baby leafy green market.
Mounting evidence demonstrates that people make surprisingly consistent associations between auditory attributes and a number of the commonly-agreed basic tastes. However, the sonic representation of (association with) saltiness has remained rather elusive. In the present study, a crowd-sourced online study ( participants) was conducted to determine the acoustical/musical attributes that best match saltiness, as well as participants’ confidence levels in their choices. Based on previous literature on crossmodal correspondences involving saltiness, thirteen attributes were selected to cover a variety of temporal, tactile, and emotional associations. The results revealed that saltiness was associated most strongly with a long decay time, high auditory roughness, and a regular rhythm. In terms of emotional associations, saltiness was matched with negative valence, high arousal, and minor mode. Moreover, significantly higher average confidence ratings were observed for those saltiness-matching choices for which there was majority agreement, suggesting that individuals were more confident about their own judgments when it matched with the group response, therefore providing support for the so-called ‘consensuality principle’. Taken together, these results help to uncover the complex interplay of mechanisms behind seemingly surprising crossmodal correspondences between sound attributes and taste.
Taste disorders, impacting well-being and physical health, can be caused by many etiologies including the use of medication. Recently, taste disturbance is also considered as one of the predominant symptoms of COVID-19 although its pathogenesis requires further research. Localized taste disorders may be overlooked considering that whole-mouth taste perception is insured through several mechanisms. Individuals often fail to discern taste from flavor, and interviews/surveys are insufficient to properly assess taste function. Hence, various taste assessment methods have been developed. Among them, psychophysical methods are most widely applied in a clinical context. Less-biased electrophysiological, imaging, or morphological methods are used to a much lesser degree. Overall, more research is needed in the field of taste.
We conducted a virtual reality (VR) study to examine the color that first came to a person’s mind when he or she drank tea. The participants were asked to drink Chinese green or red tea without any visual cues, and then to show the first color in their mind on a circle or a cup of tea in VR. The results revealed that they were able to detect the difference in the bitterness and astringency of the two types of tea. Despite variations in the specific colors chosen by different individuals, their color responses for Chinese green tea were more greenish than those for Chinese red tea, thus indicative of some associations between the green-red component of color and the bitterness and astringency. Moreover, the results also revealed that the color responses made on the virtual tea were more similar to the actual color of tea beverages than those made on the virtual circle, suggesting that the participants may rely on a concrete object to exemplify a given flavor they experienced without visual cues. These results provide novel findings about color-flavor associations for complicated and subtle flavors, and shed some light on how to modulate people’s color-flavor associations via modifying the food or drink that they bring up to their mind to exemplify a certain flavor.
There is something of a tension between consistency and natural variation as far as the visual appearance properties of food and drink are concerned. While the majority of natural products tend to change their appearance as they age/ripen, many processed foods, by contrast, are specifically designed, or formulated, so as to maintain a consistent (optimal) visual appearance during the lifetime (or shelf-life) of the product. That said, food and beverage companies sometimes do suddenly change the colour of their products (e.g., to address legislation around the use of artificial food colours, as a result of changing consumer preferences/interests, or else simply to capture the consumers' attention on the shelf). A number of modernist chefs, especially those fond of molecular gastronomy/cuisine, and mixologists, have also become increasingly interested in (changing) the colour of the foods and drinks that they serve (either to surprise or entertain their guests, or else to play to the Instagram crowd). Intriguingly, several new chemical/technical means of changing the appearance properties of food and drink in real-time have been developed recently, thus raising the question of how people will respond. The context in which the colour change occurs, and the cause to which it is attributed, may well both play a key role in determining consumer acceptance of such novel rapid transformation of the appearance of food and drink, especially given the a widespread aversion amongst consumers to those food colours that are (perceived to be) artificial.
Chemesthesis, along with taste and olfaction, is a primary component of flavor that engages the trigeminal system through specific chemical binding. For instance, many gums or confectionaries incorporate chemical cooling agents, such as Wilkinson Sword (WS) compounds, to create the sensation of coldness. The current study was designed to evaluate crossmodal associations of color and aroma with the chemesthetic perception of cooling. A “minty” and non-odorized set of confectionary stimuli, colored green, blue or white, with moderate cooling properties (with WS-3) were used in this study. In the first session, participants were randomly presented a stimulus and asked to rate several attributes including its cooling intensity on a generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS). In the second session, the same participants were asked to relate cooling levels to different colors and which color relates to the “minty” odor. Additionally, open-ended reasons were given for association choices. Appearance and odor influenced the intensity of cooling sensation. In particular, the odorized and blue samples were rated as cooler than the non-odorized and other colored samples, respectively. The follow-up session confirms blue as a color associated with cooling properties, especially cool objects/abstract concepts. Meanwhile, odor's enhancement on cooling sensation may be more perceptual in nature through affective matching from enhanced flavor.
People associate basic tastes (e.g., sweet, sour, bitter, and salty) with specific colors (e.g., pink or red, green or yellow, black or purple, and white or blue). In the present study, we investigated whether a color bordered by another color (either the same or different) would give rise to stronger taste associations relative to a single patch of color. We replicate previous findings, highlighting the existence of a robust crossmodal correspondence between individual colors and basic tastes. On occasion, color pairs were found to communicate taste expectations more consistently than were single color patches. Furthermore, and in contrast to a recent study in which the color pairs were shown side-by-side, participants took no longer to match the color pairs with tastes than the single colors (they had taken twice as long to respond to the color pairs in the previous study). Possible reasons for these results are discussed, and potential applications for the results, and for the testing methodology developed, are outlined.
People intuitively match basic tastes to sounds of different pitches, and the matches that they make tend to be consistent across individuals. It is, though, not altogether clear what governs such crossmodal mappings between taste and auditory pitch. Here, we assess whether variations in taste intensity influence the matching of taste to pitch as well as the role of emotion in mediating such crossmodal correspondences. Participants were presented with 5 basic tastants at 3 concentrations. In Experiment 1, the participants rated the tastants in terms of their emotional arousal and valence/pleasantness, and selected a musical note (from 19 possible pitches ranging from C2 to C8) and loudness that best matched each tastant. In Experiment 2, the participants made emotion ratings and note matches in separate blocks of trials, then made emotion ratings for all 19 notes. Overall, the results of the 2 experiments revealed that both taste quality and concentration exerted a significant effect on participants' loudness selection, taste intensity rating, and valence and arousal ratings. Taste quality, not concentration levels, had a significant effect on participants' choice of pitch, but a significant positive correlation was observed between individual perceived taste intensity and pitch choice. A significant and strong correlation was also demonstrated between participants' valence assessments of tastants and their valence assessments of the best-matching musical notes. These results therefore provide evidence that: 1) pitch-taste correspondences are primarily influenced by taste quality, and to a lesser extent, by perceived intensity; and 2) such correspondences may be mediated by valence/pleasantness.
Our sense of taste can be influenced by our other senses, with several groups having explored the effects of olfactory, visual, or tactile stimulation on what we perceive as taste. Research into multisensory, or crossmodal perception has rarely linked our sense of taste with that of audition. In our study, 48 participants in a crossover experiment sampled multiple concentrations of solutions of 5 prototypic tastants, during conditions with or without broad spectrum auditory stimulation, simulating that of airline cabin noise. Airline cabins are an unusual environment, in which food is consumed routinely under extreme noise conditions, often over 85 dB, and in which the perceived quality of food is often criticized. Participants rated the intensity of solutions representing varying concentrations of the 5 basic tastes on the general Labeled Magnitude Scale. No difference in intensity ratings was evident between the control and sound condition for salty, sour, or bitter tastes. Likewise, panelists did not perform differently during sound conditions when rating tactile, visual, or auditory stimulation, or in reaction time tests. Interestingly, sweet taste intensity was rated progressively lower, whereas the perception of umami taste was augmented during the experimental sound condition, to a progressively greater degree with increasing concentration. We postulate that this effect arises from mechanostimulation of the chorda tympani nerve, which transits directly across the tympanic membrane of the middle ear.
Can basic tastes, such as sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and possibly also umami, be conveyed by means of colour? If so, how should we understand the relationship between colours and tastes: Is it universal or relative, innate or acquired, unidirectional or bidirectional? Here, we review the growing body of scientific research showing that people systematically associate specific colours with particular tastes. We highlight how these widely shared bidirectional crossmodal correspondences generalize across cultures and stress their difference from synaesthesia (with which they are often confused). The various explanations that have been put forward to account for such crossmodal mappings are then critically evaluated. Finally, we go on to look at some of the innovative ways in which chefs, culinary artists, designers, and marketers are taking—or could potentially push further—the latest insights from research in this area as inspiration for their own creative endeavours.
We report a cross-cultural study designed to investigate crossmodal correspondences between a variety of visual features (11 colors, 15 shapes, and 2 textures) and the five basic taste terms (bitter, salty, sour, sweet, and umami). A total of 452 participants from China, India, Malaysia, and the USA viewed color patches, shapes, and textures online and had to choose the taste term that best matched the image and then rate their confidence in their choice. Across the four groups of participants, the results revealed a number of crossmodal correspondences between certain colors/shapes and bitter, sour, and sweet tastes. Crossmodal correspondences were also documented between the color white and smooth/rough textures on the one hand and the salt taste on the other. Cross-cultural differences were observed in the correspondences between certain colors, shapes, and one of the textures and the taste terms. The taste-patterns shown by the participants from the four countries tested in the present study are quite different from one another, and these differences cannot easily be attributed merely to whether a country is Eastern or Western. These findings therefore highlight the impact of cultural background on crossmodal correspondences. As such, they raise a number of interesting questions regarding the neural mechanisms underlying crossmodal correspondences.
Claims of universality pervade color preference research. It has been argued that there are universal preferences for some colors over others (e.g., Eysenck, 1941), universal sex differences (e.g., Hurlbert & Ling, 2007), and universal mechanisms or dimensions that govern these preferences (e.g., Palmer & Schloss, 2010). However, there have been surprisingly few cross-cultural investigations of color preference and none from nonindustrialized societies that are relatively free from the common influence of global consumer culture. Here, we compare the color preferences of British adults to those of Himba adults who belong to a nonindustrialized culture in rural Namibia. British and Himba color preferences are found to share few characteristics, and Himba color preferences display none of the so-called "universal" patterns or sex differences. Several significant predictors of color preference are identified, such as cone-contrast between stimulus and background (Hurlbert & Ling, 2007), the valence of color-associated objects (Palmer & Schloss, 2010), and the colorfulness of the color. However, the relationship of these predictors to color preference was strikingly different for the two cultures. No one model of color preference is able to account for both British and Himba color preferences. We suggest that not only do patterns of color preference vary across individuals and groups but the underlying mechanisms and dimensions of color preference vary as well. The findings have implications for broader debate on the extent to which our perception and experience of color is culturally relative or universally constrained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
We aimed at elucidating the relationship between odor, taste, color, and food stimuli where subjects were studied either with questionnaires or in electrophysiological experiments. First, a total of 144 word pairs were rated by 660 subjects who determined whether the first stimulus (odor or taste word) matched the second one (color or food word). In an electrophysiological experiment, EEG was recorded from 30 electrodes in 24 healthy adults while clearly matching, or nonmatching, word pairs were presented on a monitor. Evoked potentials were computed for different stimulus classes (matching or nonmatching combinations of odor or taste and color or food words). Six components were identified and compared between conditions. For most components, field strength (GFP) was lower for nonmatching than for matching word pairs. In addition to late effects, electrical brain activity was influenced by experimental conditions as early as at 100 ms latency. Most effects observed were in the time range between 100 and 250 ms. Our data show how color and food words are differently affected when paired with odor or taste words. Complex interactions between stimulus modality (taste/odor) and different target words (color/food) occurred depending on whether the pairs were seen by the subjects as appropriate or inappropriate. Topographical effects indicated that different neural populations were activated in different conditions. Most interestingly, there were many cognitive effects occurring quite early (on the order of 100 ms) after stimulus presentation, and our results suggest rapid cognitive processing of information on odor, taste, color, and food items. This is an important prerequisite for the preconscious and fast choice of food items in everyday behavior, and the data confirm earlier findings on rapid and preconscious semantic processing in the visual cortex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Color preference is an important aspect of visual experience, but little is known about why people in general like some colors more than others. Previous research suggested explanations based on biological adaptations [Hurlbert AC, Ling YL (2007) Curr Biol 17:623-625] and color-emotions [Ou L-C, Luo MR, Woodcock A, Wright A (2004) Color Res Appl 29:381-389]. In this article we articulate an ecological valence theory in which color preferences arise from people's average affective responses to color-associated objects. An empirical test provides strong support for this theory: People like colors strongly associated with objects they like (e.g., blues with clear skies and clean water) and dislike colors strongly associated with objects they dislike (e.g., browns with feces and rotten food). Relative to alternative theories, the ecological valence theory both fits the data better (even with fewer free parameters) and provides a more plausible, comprehensive causal explanation of color preferences.
Examined how pitch and loudness correspond to brightness. In the Experiment 1, 16 Ss identified which of 2 lights more resembled each of 16 tones; in Experiment 2, 8 of the same 16 Ss rated the similarity of lights to lights, tones to tones, and lights to tones. (1) Pitch and loudness both contributed to cross-modal similarity, but for most Ss pitch contributed more. (2) Individuals differed as to whether pitch or loudness contributed more; these differences were consistent across matching and similarity scaling. (3) Cross-modal similarity depended largely on relative stimulus values. (4) Multidimensional scaling revealed 2 perceptual dimensions, loudness and pitch, with brightness common to both. A simple quantitative model can describe the cross-modal comparisons, compatible with the view that perceptual similarity may be characterized through a malleable spatial representation that is multimodal as well as multidimensional.
The Labeled Magnitude Scale (LMS) is a semantic scale of perceptual intensity characterized by a quasi-logarithmic spacing of its verbal labels. The LMS had previously been shown to yield psychophysical functions equivalent to magnitude estimation (ME) when gustatory, thermal and nociceptive stimuli were presented and rated together, and the upper bound of the LMS was defined as the 'strongest imaginable oral sensation'. The present study compared the LMS to ME within the more limited contexts of taste and smell. In Experiment 1, subjects used both methods to rate either taste intensity produced by sucrose and NaC1 or odor intensity produced by acetic acid and phenyl ethyl alcohol, with the upper bound of the LMS defined as either the 'strongest imaginable taste' or the 'strongest imaginable odor'. The LMS produced psychophysical functions equivalent to those produced by ME. In, Experiment 2 a new group of subjects used both methods to rate the intensity of three different taste qualities, with the upper bound of the LMS defined as the 'strongest imaginable [sweetness, saltiness, or bitterness]'. In all three cases the LMS produced steeper functions than did ME. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that the LMS yields data comparable to ME only when the perceptual domain under study includes painful sensations. This hypothesis was supported when the LMS again produced steeper functions that ME after subjects had been explicitly instructed to omit painful sensations (e.g. the 'burn' of hot peppers) from the concept of 'strongest imaginable taste'. We conclude that the LMS can be used to scale sensations of taste and smell when they are broadly defined, but that it should be modified for use in scaling specific taste (and probably odor) qualities. The implications of these results for theoretical issues related to ME, category-ratio scales and the size of the perceptual range in different sensory modalities are discussed.
The authors examined preconceptions of taste based on color with a questionnaire administered to 45 college students. The questionnaire related 8 tastes with 10 colors. The results suggested that only a limited number of colors are positively associated with preconceptions of taste. However, certain colors (e.g., red and green) showed consistent patterns of association with taste. Implications for future research examining an indirect relationship between color and taste are discussed.
Recently, it has been demonstrated that people associate each of the basic tastes (e.g., sweet, sour, bitter, and salty) with specific colors (e.g., red, green, black, and white). In the present study, we investigated whether pairs of colors (both associated with a particular taste or taste word) would give rise to stronger associations relative to pairs of colors that were associated with different tastes. We replicate the findings of previous studies highlighting the existence of a robust crossmodal correspondence between individual colors and basic tastes. However, while there was evidence that pairs of colors could indeed communicate taste information more consistently than single colors, our participants took more than twice as long to match the color pairs with tastes than the single colors. Possible reasons for these results are discussed.
Narrowly viewed, taste is limited to sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami (meaty, savory) sensations. Colloquially, taste refers to sensations from foods and beverages, where taste combines with other sensory inputs to produce complex sensations. Recent progress in psychophysics - the study of relationships between physical stimuli and the perceptions they induce - permits the characterization of normal variation and variation associated with aging or damage. Appropriate methods are needed to fully understand genetic, molecular, and neurochemical processes involved in taste sensation. Via psychophysics, we can measure how taste variation influences food preference and intake and ultimately our health and quality of life.
Color cues can influence the experience of flavor, both by influencing identification and perceived intensity of foods. Previous research has largely focused on the crossmodal influence of vision upon taste or olfactory cues. It is plausible that color cues could also affect perceived trigeminal sensation; these studies demonstrate a crossmodal influence of color on piquancy. In our first two experiments, participants rated the spiciness of images of salsas that were adjusted to vary in color and intensity. We found that red was associated with significantly higher ratings of expected spice than blue, and that darker reds were expected to be spicier than lighter reds. In our third experiment, participants tasted and then rated the spiciness of each of four salsas (with two levels of color and of piquancy) when sighted and when blindfolded. Spiciness ratings were unaffected by differing colors when the salsa was mild, but when the piquancy was increased, a lack of increase in color corresponded to a depressed spiciness. These results can be explained using a model of assimilation and contrast. Taken together, our findings show that in our US sample, there is a crossmodal correspondence between visual and trigeminal senses that can influence perception of spiciness.
Crossmodal correspondences between gustatory (taste), olfactory (smell), and flavour stimuli on the one hand and visual attributes on the other have been extensively documented in recent years. For instance, people have been shown to consistently match specific tastes and flavours to particular visual shapes. That said, further research is still needed in order to clarify how and why such correspondences exist. Here, we report a series of four experiments designed to assess what drives people’s matching of visual roundness/angularity to both ‘basic’ taste names and actual tastants. In Experiment 1, crossmodal correspondences between taste names and abstract shapes were assessed. Next, the results were replicated in a larger online study (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 assessed the role of liking in the association between taste words and morphed shapes along the roundness/angularity dimension. In Experiment 4, basic tastants were mapped to the roundness/angularity dimension, while the mediating role of liking for each taste was assessed. Across the 4 experiments, participants consistently matched sweetness to roundness. What is more, people’s liking for a taste (but not their liking for imagined tastes) appeared to influence their shape matching responses. These results are discussed in terms of crossmodal correspondences, and a potential role for hedonics is outlined.
Experimental evidence demonstrates robust cross-modal matches between music and colors that are mediated by emotional associations. US and Mexican participants chose colors that were most/least consistent with 18 selections of classical orchestral music by Bach, Mozart, and Brahms. In both cultures, faster music in the major mode produced color choices that were more saturated, lighter, and yellower whereas slower, minor music produced the opposite pattern (choices that were desaturated, darker, and bluer). There were strong correlations (0.89 < r < 0.99) between the emotional associations of the music and those of the colors chosen to go with the music, supporting an emotional mediation hypothesis in both cultures. Additional experiments showed similarly robust cross-modal matches from emotionally expressive faces to colors and from music to emotionally expressive faces. These results provide further support that music-to-color associations are mediated by common emotional associations.
Generally valid translation of the seven colors of the rainbow into the sounds of an octave was established. Over 500 replies were collected from all over the world to the questions about associations between those colors and the five basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami) and between those colors and seven selected odors (ethereal, floral, camphor, pungent, putrid, peppermint, musky). Based on the replies, a list of standard associations was constructed. Units of taste, called mniams, and odor, called fooys, were introduced. These units, together with the specific permutation system, provided quantification of sensory impressions, quantitative evaluation of deviations from the standard, and translation of one sensory impression into another.
Standardization of sensory impressions could be helpful in the understanding and interpretation of emotions. Expression of the sensory impressions with some units might provide a quantification of temporary and permanent deviations from the standards. It could also be a convenient tool in passing information to people with malfunctions of certain sensors, or people with unusual talents and abilities. Simultaneous involvement of standardized expressions of human sensory impressions would be possible providing an increased efficiency of transmission of multisensory information and an increase in human sensitivity to the signals coming from outside. Trained conjugated perception of sensory impressions would be helpful in early warning against approaching disasters, health breakdowns, and so on. Potentially, some feelings called intuition would be lifted to the position of interpretable impressions.
The presented method should be of particular interest to the fields of psychology, psychiatry, criminology, sociology and therapy. It should also attract the attention of product designers, and of sensory analysts in food designing and nutrition.
In a recent paper, we described the development and application of a labeled affective magnitude (LAM) scale for assessing liking/disliking (Schutz and Cardello 2001). Here we present the exact numerical scale-point locations corresponding to the verbal labels of the scale, so that investigators can easily construct the LAM scale for use with either paper or computer-based ballots.
In many everyday situations, our senses are bombarded by many different unisensory signals at any given time. To gain the most veridical, and least variable, estimate of environmental stimuli/properties, we need to combine the individual noisy unisensory perceptual estimates that refer to the same object, while keeping those estimates belonging to different objects or events separate. How, though, does the brain "know" which stimuli to combine? Traditionally, researchers interested in the crossmodal binding problem have focused on the roles that spatial and temporal factors play in modulating multisensory integration. However, crossmodal correspondences between various unisensory features (such as between auditory pitch and visual size) may provide yet another important means of constraining the crossmodal binding problem. A large body of research now shows that people exhibit consistent crossmodal correspondences between many stimulus features in different sensory modalities. For example, people consistently match high-pitched sounds with small, bright objects that are located high up in space. The literature reviewed here supports the view that crossmodal correspondences need to be considered alongside semantic and spatiotemporal congruency, among the key constraints that help our brains solve the crossmodal binding problem.
Many subjects cannot identify sour and bitter solutions which they can clearly taste. Subjects show a great deal of agreement on the taste of predominantly sweet and predominantly salt substances, but much less agreement on predominantly bitter and predominantly sour substances. The argument is put forward that we do not easily learn the sour/bitter distinction because few food substances taste strongly bitter. Because bitter has an unpleasant connotation a large minority tends to use it wrongly for substances that are unpleasantly sour.
Subjects were required to give taste responses to days of the week and states of the USA, as well as colour responses. Some consistency of response was obtained over three sessions held at two-week intervals. The implications of such consistency of response to nongustatory stimuli for psychophysical taste description are discussed.
Using single colours and colour pairs to communicate basic tastes
- Velasco
Velasco C, Michel C, Youssef J, Gamez X, Check A, Spence C. 2016. Using
single colours and colour pairs to communicate basic tastes. Int J Food
Design. 1:83-102.