The bi-directional relationships between emotions and sensory cues in multisensory integration

THE BI-DIRECTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN EMOTIONS AND SENSORY CUES IN MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION

Sponsoring Institution

National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Project Status

TERMINATED

Funding Source

HATCH

Reporting Frequency

Annual

Accession No.

1012913

Grant No.

(N/A)

Project No.

ARK02561

Proposal No.

(N/A)

Multistate No.

(N/A)

Program Code

(N/A)

Project Start Date

Jul 11, 2017

Project End Date

Sep 30, 2021

Grant Year

(N/A)

Project Director
Seo, H.

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
(N/A)
FAYETTEVILLE,AR 72703

Performing Department
Food Science

Non Technical Summary
Since sensory attributes and acceptability have been considered to be important factors in determining food choice, food industries try to design better-tasting products, and new food products are typically subjected to both sensory analytical profiling and consumer acceptability testing prior to their market introduction. Nevertheless, the success rate for new food/beverage product introduction in the retail market is low, which might bedue to the fact that food choice and liking are influenced by many factors including but not limited to consumer characteristics, environmental contexts, and product-related information. In particular, it is worth noting that many consumers often seem inclined to choose or eat certain food or beverage items as a result of spontaneous emotions triggered by the items. Thus, food industries have recently directed additional attention to emotional responses evoked by food and beverages when setting up marketing strategies or slogans for their products. Thisproject aims to determine whether and how sensory cues from food and beverages affect emotional responses. On the other hand, it is also known that emotional state may modulate eating behavior and sensory perception even though it still remains difficult to predict exactly how emotions influence eating and sensory perception. Negative emotions, in contrast to positive emotions, seem to have more impact on eating behavior and sensory perception, and are frequently triggered by acuteor chronicstressors. In particular, psychological stress may lead people to engage in unhealthy eating behavior such as overeating and unhealthy food consumption, thereby increasing the likelihood of obesity, functional gastrointestinal disorder, and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, this project aims to understand how emotions, especially negative emotions, affect sensory perception and eating behavior. Based on the results obtained from this project, food processors, product developers, and sensory professionals could construct a strategy of developing new food products or recipes fitted to people who are more vunlernable to influence of negative emotions. In another way, food processors and product developers could develop new products that relieve negative emotions orpsychological stresses.In this way, the results from this project may contribute to not only decreasing the prevalence of obesity, cardiovascular disease, emotional eating, or eating disorder, but also reducing the related economic burden in the U.S.

Animal Health Component

Research Effort Categories

Basic

30%

Applied

40%

Developmental

30%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
703	7220	3090	50%
502	2232	3090	10%
724	7310	2090	20%
607	6299	3070	20%

Knowledge Area
703 - Nutrition Education and Behavior; 724 - Healthy Lifestyle; 607 - Consumer Economics; 502 - New and Improved Food Products;

Subject Of Investigation
2232 - Coffee; 7310 - Experimental design and statistical methods; 7220 - Sensory evaluation/analysis methods (human senses); 6299 - Marketing, general/other;

Field Of Science
2090 - Statistics, econometrics, and biometrics; 3070 - Psychology; 3090 - Sensory science (human senses);

Keywords

emotions, psychological stress

sensory perception, acceptability

food choice, eating behavior

multisensory integration

Goals / Objectives
The ultimate mission of the Sensory and Consumer Science program at the University of Arkansas is to contribute to improved quality of life and wellness through healthy and joyful eating behavior. To achieve the mission, we should understand two points, i.e., people perceive food and beverages through a multisensory experience, and eating quality is one of important factors to determine quality of life and wellness. During the past five years (2012-2017), my research program has highlighted the multisensory interactions in sensory characteristics of food or non-food products, i.e., cross-modal interactions. Since a multisensory processing during eating can vary with non-sensory factors such as personality traits, emotional state, and demographics, those influences will be determined with two objectives during the upcoming five years (2017-2022):To determine whether and how sensory cues from food and beverages affect emotional responsesTo determine whether and how emotional states modulate sensory perception and acceptability in eating and drinking contexts.

Project Methods
Objective 1: To develop a methodology for measuring emotional responses evoked by sensory cues of food or beverage itemsEmotion-oriented questionnaires consisting of verbal or non-verbal emotion terms have been used to measure emotional responses evoked by odor, food, or beverage items. While emotions assessed by such questionnaires can be considered as outputs of conscious/rational decision processes, since many consumers may be likely to purchase or consume certain food or beverage items via implicit and emotional decision processes, other methodologies that measure implicit emotions should be considered when measuring emotional responses evoked by sensory cues of food or beverage items. This study therefore aims to develop a methodology of measuring food/beverage-evoked emotional responses associated with food choice or food-related pleasure. In addition to emotional questionnaires, both facial expression analysis and ANS responses will be employed to find the best conditions for measuring emotional responses. More specifically, a variety of data obtained from galvanic skin response, heart rate, heart rate variability, finger temperature, electroencephalogram, and/or pupil diameter will be analyzed for establishing an optimum methodology for measuring emotional responses.Objective 2: To determine whether and how emotional state influences sensory perception and eating behaviorThis study aims to determine whether acute or chronic stress affects perception and acceptability of odors, taste-producing substances, and food/beverage items. Participants will be asked to completea self-administrated survey on chronic stress experienced over the previous month. According to the survey score result, participants will be assigned to a "low stress group" (e.g., the lowest 25%) and a "high stress group" (e.g., the highest 25%). If needed, stress-related biomarkers, such as cortisol, will be used to compare the two groups with respect to the level of psychological stress. Participants' orthonasal olfactory function will be examinedin terms ofodor sensitivity, discrimination, and identification. Moreover, retronasal olfactory function will be assessed using a test kit, developed in this project, for flavor identification. Participants' gustatory function will be measured with respect to sensitivity and perceived intensity of tasting cues using a psychophysical method. The influence of chronic stress on orthonasal olfactory function and gustatory function will be assessed using cortical electrophysiological testing.

Progress 07/11/17 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes, but is not limited to, food consumers, students, teachers, processors, marketers, and sensory professionals involved in food production, development, education, sales, and marketing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the five-year period from 2017 to 2021, research assistants and staff members gained extensive experience in conducting research projects related to multisensory interactions of and emotional responses to food and beverage samples. They were also trained to learn how to initiate and design novel methods for measuring sensory or emotional responses toward test samples. The outcomes obtained during the project period can be applied to development of educational materials, publications in peer-reviewed journals, and extramural grant proposals related to associations between sensory and emotional responses toward food or beverage samples in eating contexts. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of our project studies provide empirical evidence about bidirectional relationships between sensory and emotional responses in the context of eating experience. Our findings highlight the thought that processors, manufacturers, sensory professionals, and marketers should consider mutual interactions between sensory and emotional cues and their associated variables in modulating consumer behaviors related to food choice and eating. Food-industry professionals might also consider using novel methods developed over a period of time for better predicting target-consumers' sensory or emotional responses toward food samples. Sensory professionals should also consider a new protocol, the drive-in booth condition, when conducting sensory evaluation of food during pandemic or epidemic periods. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This project, conducted over the previous five years, was aimed at achievement of better understanding of bidirectional relationships between sensory perceptions and emotions with respect to multisensory integration and interaction of food/beverage samples. The main achievements of the project can be highlighted as follows: First, we conducted a series of studies that established an experimental method for measuring consumer perception of or emotional responses toward food and beverage samples. More specifically, we successfully set up a method for measuring food-evoked emotions based on a combination of explicit (using a self-reported questionnaire related to evoked emotions) and implicit (using biometric changes in response to test samples) measurements with respect to beverage samples. Our findings revealed that such a combined approach for measuring consumer emotions, along with sensory attribute intensity ratings, can better predict consumer liking, consumer preference, and purchasing-related behavior toward test samples than when they are separately used. Interestingly, it was also found that individuals' personality traits (especially extraversion and neuroticism) and other demographic factors (e.g., gender) can affect optimum methods for predicting overall liking or preference rank toward test samples. Second, our team designed a novel method for measuring sensory or emotional responses to food/beverage samples typically consumed at hot or cold temperatures. For example, when individuals consume hot or cold meal-products, they may experience the products over a wide range of product temperatures as such temperatures change over time. In most sensory studies of hot or cold food/beverage samples, however, test samples have been evaluated at specific serving temperatures and not over the wide range of product temperatures in which such products may typically be consumed. Since sensory perception and liking of food/beverage products were found to differ with product temperature, we developed an experimental protocol for better characterizing temperature-dependent variations in sensory or emotional responses toward food or beverage samples. By asking panelists to evaluate test samples using a rapid sensory profiling technique (i.e., Check-All-That-Apply method) at multiple serving temperatures, we were better able to characterize consumption temperature-dependent variations in sensory or emotional responses than when utilizing traditional sensory methods (i.e., tested at a specific serving temperature). Our team's multiple studies validated the efficiency of tracking consumption temperature-dependent variations in sensory or emotional responses over an expanded range of sample temperatures in a variety of samples such as cooked rice, brewed coffee, water, and soups. Third, our studies have provided empirical evidence on how individuals' emotional states or cognitive styles affect their sensory perception, acceptance, and behavior toward test samples in eating and drinking contexts. We in particular have focused on how food neophobia, negative emotions, or mental stress can influence consumers' visual attention, sensory perception and liking, and eating behavior. Our findings from a series of studies revealed that negative emotions could alter visual attention toward food images, food liking and wanting, and sensory functions. Notably, such an influence of emotions on sensory perception and eating behavior is not straightforward but complex, with multiple variables such as demographic profiles, personality traits, cognitive styles, or autistic traits. Finally, a severe outbreak caused by "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2) (also known as COVID-19) was initially reported during a period of the project (in December 2019) and still continues to spread across the globe. In an effort to continue sensory evaluations of products in a safe manner during current and potential pandemics, our team developed a drive-in booth condition that may be substituted for a laboratory sensory booth condition. In other words, we have developed a novel protocol of sensory evaluation to minimize a potential risk of spreading COVID-19 between panelists during their tasting and evaluating food samples. The drive-in booth condition was found to have no differences from the laboratory sensory booth condition with respect to participants' sensory, hedonic, and emotional responses to beverage samples, suggesting that the drive-in booth condition can be an effective and safe substitute for the indoor sensory booth condition when conducting laboratory sensory testing of food samples is considered unfeasible. Taken together, our team's studies suggest novel methods for measuring consumers' sensory or emotional responses to test samples, provide empirical evidence related to associations between sensory and emotional responses in the context of eating experience, and reveal factors influencing such associations over a wide range of eating contexts. These findings, obtained over the past five years, provide a better understanding of the bidirectional relationships between sensory and emotional responses in the context of eating experience.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Beekman TL, Seo H-S (2022) Cognitive styles influence eating environment-induced variations in consumer perception of food: A case study with Pad Thai noodle. Food Quality and Preference, 98, 104525
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Beekman TL, Seo H-S (2022) Should panelists refrain from wearing a personal fragrance prior to sensory evaluation? The effect of using perfume on olfactory performance. Foods, 11, 428.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes, but is not limited to, food consumers, students, teachers, processors, marketers, and sensory professionals involved in food production, development, education, sales, and marketing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During this period of the project, research assistants and professionals gainedextensiveexperiencesofconducting research projects related to multisensory interactions of and emotionalresponsesto food and beverage samples.Also, they earned significant experiences indevelopingan optimum model of predicting either overall liking or purchase intenttowardfood or beverage products based on sensory attributeintensities, emotional responses, and non-sensory factorsof the products.The results obtained during the period of the project can be applied to developmentsof educationalmaterialsandtext books, andpublications inpeer-reviewed journalsin contexts related to associations between sensory and emotional responses with respect to tasting substances. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?People are likely to experience meals initially served hot or cold over a wide range of temperatures because consumption of most meals lasts more than 10 minutes.However, in most studies associated with the effect of serving temperature, consumer perception and acceptance of hot or cold food/beverage sampleshave been measured atspecific servingtemperatures. However, as shown in Study 1,sensory and emotional responses to food/beverage samples can change with sample temperature.Our findings therefore emphasize that product developers, marketers,foodservice professionals,and sensoryscientistsshould considerhow sensory attributes of and emotional responses to their target products can vary in a wider spectrum of sample temperatures. The results of Study 2 showed that inaddition to the intrinsic sensory cues, extrinsic sensory cuescan affectboth sensory and emotional responses to food/beverage samples.More specifically, while cardboard cup-sleeves are typically used for to-go cups of brewed coffee and tea products, sleeves made from different materials canbe applied to enhance consumer acceptability and modulate sensoryperception and emotional responses towardsuch beverage products.For example, based on the association between sweetness and towel sleeves, towel sleeves can be used to reducetheexcessiveamount ofsugar added into beverage products. Study 3 provided newempirical evidence thatemotional responses toward vegetable juice products, measured by a self-reported questionnaire and facial expression analysis, have the potential tomodulate consumer purchase intentstothe products, although non-sensory factors andsensory attribute intensity play an important role in purchase-related behaviors toward the mixed-vegetable juice products.However, many food companies are likelytorely on consumer acceptance testing only, which may berelated tohigh failure rates of new market introductions.Our findings, therefore, suggest that a holistic approach including sensory attributes, non-sensory factors, and emotional responses should beconsidered in achieving better understanding of consumers' purchase behaviors toward food/beverage products. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The three studies conducted during this reporting period have shown that food/beverage-evoked emotions should be considered in achieving full understanding of consumer perception, acceptance, and behavior toward food/beverage products.However, it still remains unclear how such evoked emotions influenceconsumers' purchase-related behaviors and how such emotions can be measured inasystematic manner.In this way, furtherstudies will be conducted to identify mechanisms underlying the effect of food/beverage-evoked emotions on consumers' purchase behaviors and determine methodology for measuring such emotions from multi-dimensional perspectives.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Study 1 aimed todetermine how intrinsic sensory cuesaffect sensory and emotional responses to food samples. More specifically,it was determined whether sample temperatures can modulate sensory attributes of and emotional responses to tomato soup samples. A total of 103 consumer panelistswere asked tocheck all appropriate terms from the lists of 34 sensory attributes or 39 emotional responsesafter consuming thetwotomato soup products served at four temperatures: 70, 55, 40, and 25 °C.The results showed that 20 sensory and 27 emotional attributes differed significantlyamong theeight samples (2 products x 4 temperatures).Notably, while variations in sensory attributes were better explained by product type, those in emotional responses were attributed to sample temperatures.In a follow-up study using water samples served at four temperatures: 70, 55, 40, and 25°C, emotional responses to water samples differed with sample temperature. These results suggest that sample temperatures can significantly affect both sensory and emotional responses tofood or beveragesamples consumed at different temperatures.In other words, people canexperience variations in sensory and emotional responses to foodor beveragesamples while they consume the samples in a wide range of sample temperature. Study 2 aimed at determining how extrinsic sensory cuesmodulate sensory and emotional responsesto beverage samples. Study 2 was designed to specially focus on how hand-feel touch cues can modulate sensory attributes of and emotional responses to coffee beverage samples.A total of 120 consumer panelists were randomly assignedto one of three groups: towel, linen, and stainless steel.Within each group, panelists were asked to evaluate brewed coffee with two different sleeve materials: (1) cardboard (control) and(2) one of the other materialsfound to be most associated with the three basic taste qualities: towel (associated with sweetness), linen (associated with saltiness), andstainless steel (associated with sour taste)with respect to sensory and emotional attributes.The brewed coffee samplesconsumed with different sleeve materials were found toevoke different emotional responses. For example,towel sleeveswere found to elicithigher intensities of"content", "curious", "happy", "peaceful", "pleased", "relaxed", "soothing", and "warm" emotions than cardboard sleeves. Of interest,whilepanelistswere found torate brewed coffee samples with towel sleeves less bitter than those with cardboard sleeves, such differences were not found in other pairwise comparisons with the cardboard sleeve condition. Theseresults show that hand-feel touch cuescan be associated with specific tastes and emotional attribute, thus modulating consumer perception and acceptability of brewed coffee samples. Study 3sought to determine an optimum model of predicting purchase-related behaviors toward vegetable juice products based on sensory attribute intensities of, emotional responses to, and non-sensory factors ofthe products. More specifically, 69 consumer panelists were asked to view product labels, and look at, smell, and drink five commercially-available mixed-vegetable juice products. While they were evaluating each product sampleandjudgingtheir purchase intents, sensory attribute intensities, non-sensory factors, and emotional responses,measured using a self-reported emotion questionnaire, facial expression analysis, and autonomic nervous system responses,werecollected.The results showed that bitterness intensity and brand liking played a key role in modulating purchase-related behaviors ofmixed-vegetable juice products.Emotional responses measured by a self-reported emotion questionnaire and facial expression analysiswere also found to serve as contributors to predicting purchase intents of mixed-vegetablejuice products. This study, therefore, shows that sensory attributes, non-sensory factors, and food/beverage-evoked emotions can affect consumer purchase-related behaviors to mixed-vegetable juice products under informed tasting conditions.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Singh A, Seo, H-S (2020) Sample temperatures can modulate both emotional responses to and sensory attributes of tomato soup samples. Food Quality and Preference, 86, 104005.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Pramudya RC, Choudhury, D, Zou M, Seo H-S (2020) "Bitter Touch": Cross-modal associations between hand-feel touch and gustatory cues in the context of coffee consumption experience. Food Quality and Preference, 83, 103914.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Samant SS, Seo H-S (2020) Influences of sensory attribute intensity, emotional responses, and non-sensory factors on purchase intent toward mixed-vegetable juice products under informed tasting condition. Food Research International, 132, 109095.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Seo H-S, Adams SH, Howard LR, Brownmiller C, Hogan V, Chen J-R, Pramudya RC (2020) Children's liking and wanting of foods vary over multiple bites/sips of consumption: A case study of foods containing wild blueberry powder in the amounts targeted to deliver bioactive phytonutrients for children. Food Research International, 131, 108981.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jeesan SA, Seo HS (2020) Color-induced aroma illusion: Color cues can modulate consumer perception, acceptance, and emotional responses toward cooked rice. Foods, 9(12), 1845.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Jarma Arroyo SE, Hogan V, Ahrent Wisdom D, Moldenhauer KAK, Seo H-S (2020) Effect of geographical indication information on consumer acceptability of cooked aromatic rice. Foods, 9(12), 1843.

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes, but is not limited to, food consumers, students, teachers, processors, marketers, and sensory professionals involved in food production, development, education, sales, and marketing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During this period of the project, research assistants and professionals gained much experience of developing an optimum model of predicting either overall liking or preference toward tasting substances based on sensory attribute intensities and emotional responses as a function of consumer personality traits. The results obtained during the period of the project can be applied to development of education materials, text books, and peer-reviewed journal articles in contexts related to associations between sensory and emotional responses with respect to tasting substances. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This study provided new empirical evidence that contributions of parameters for measuring sensory or emotional responses toward basic taste solutions with respect to prediction of overall liking or preference rank can differ as a function of consumer personality traits. The results from this study suggest food industry professionals should consider personality traits of their target population when not only designing tasting substances, but also predicting liking of and preference for the substances. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Because current predictors of ANSR have shown low predictability for overall liking and preference rank toward tasting substances, further study should be conducted to identify another parameter of ANS in order to better predict consumer preference for tasting substances. Another research study looking at whether personality traits can also affect contribution levels of sensory and emotional measures to the prediction model of overall liking or preference with respect to other types of foods and beverages will also be conducted.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To better understand bidirectional associations between sensory and emotional responses toward food or beverage items, the following study has been conducted: This study aimed to determine whether individual personality traits could play an important role in prediction models of overall liking and preference rank with respect to basic taste solutions. Based on the results of a hierarchical cluster analysis of five personality traits measured using the Big Five Inventory, 67 participants were classified into cluster E (high extraversion) and cluster N (high neuroticism). All participants rated taste intensities (TI) of four basic-taste solutions at both low and high concentrations, and of plain water. Participants' emotions evoked by taste stimuli were measured using three methods: a self-reported emotion questionnaire (SEQ), facial expression analysis (FEA), and autonomic nervous system responses (ANSR). Participants were also asked to rate overall liking of the samples and rank their preferences. Results showed that the two clusters, N and E, differed with respect to the impact of FEA and/or TI in increasing the predictability of overall liking and preference rank toward taste stimuli. More specifically, while using FE and TI, along with SEQ, enhanced model predictability among participants in cluster N, the contribution of FE and TI to the prediction model was minimal among those in cluster E. In conclusion, this study shows that predictabilities of parameters for measuring sensory or emotional responses with respect to overall liking and preference rank toward basic taste solutions can vary with consumers' personality traits, in particular traits of extraversion and neuroticism.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Singh A, Beekman TL, Seo HS (2019) Olfactory cues of restaurant wait staff modulate patrons' dining experiences and behavior. Foods, 8(12), 619.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Pramudya RC and Seo HS (2019) Hand-feel touch cues and their influences on consumer perception and behavior with respect to food products: A review. Foods, 8(7), 259.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Chapko MJ, Seo HS (2019) Characterizing product temperature-dependent sensory perception of brewed coffee beverages: Descriptive sensory analysis. Food Research International, 121, 612-621.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Samant SS, Seo HS (2019) Personality traits affect the influences of intensity perception and emotional responses on hedonic rating and preference rank toward basic taste solutions. Journal of Neuroscience Research, 97(3), 276-291.

Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes, but is not limited to, food consumers, students, teachers, processors, marketers, and sensory professionals involved in food production, development, education, sales, and marketing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During this period of the project, research assistants and professionals gained much experience related to effectively measuring sensory and emotional responses to food and beverage items. In addition, the results from the two studies can be applied to development of education materials, text-books, and peer-reviewed journal articles in contexts related to associations between sensory and emotional responses with respect to food and beverage. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Study 1 provided for the first time empirical evidence that consumers' food neophobia traits can modulate visual attention toward product images of ethnic foods. Our findings therefore emphasize that processors, marketers, and sensory professionals should consider levels of food neophobia traits among potential target consumers when designing new ethnic food/beverage items. Study 2 highlighted the importance of measurement of emotion in predicting overall liking of vegetable juice products, and encouraged sensory professionals to include potential consumers' emotional responses to food or beverage products when predicting their acceptability. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In Study 2, because current predictors of sensory attribute intensity and emotional response have shown low predictability for preference rank among mixed vegetable juice products, further study is needed to develop an optimum model for better predicting juice product preferences. Additional research will be conducted during the next reporting period to better understand how individual and contextual variations affect optimum models with respect to predicting overall liking of and preference for food and beverage items.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To seek better understanding of bidirectional associations between sensory and emotional responses toward food or beverage items, the following two studies have been conducted: Study 1 aimed to determine whether food neophobia traits can affect consumers' visual attention toward packaging images and sensory perception of ethnic-flavored potato chips. A total of 90 participants from both high food neophobia (HFN) and low food neophobia (LFN) groups were asked to look at packaging images of plain-, local-, and ethnic-flavored potato chips, and their visual attention directed toward the packaging images was measured using an eye-tracker. The participants were also asked to rate their own willingness to taste, expectation of liking, and purchase intent of the products. The participants were also asked one week later to rate sensory attributes and acceptance of the potato chip products whose packaging images had been viewed. The results showed that participants in the LFN group looked at descriptions related to ethnic and local flavors shown on the packaging images of the potato chips significantly longer than did those in the HFN group, although such a trend has not been observed in packaging images of all ethnic flavored potato chip products. In summary, results from this study demonstrated that food neophobia traits can affect visual attention toward information about ethnic flavors shown on the packaging of food products. Study 2 sought to determine an optimum model of predicting either overall liking of or preference for vegetable juice products based on sensory attribute intensities of and emotional responses to mixed-vegetable juice products. Emotional responses were measured using three different methods: a self-reported emotion questionnaire, facial expression analysis, and autonomic nervous system (ANS) response measurement. The results showed that a combination of 1) perceived attribute intensities, 2) self-reported emotions, and 3) facially-expressed emotions performs best in predicting overall liking, but those predictors reflected only low predictability of preference rank among mixed-vegetable juice products.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Samant SS, Seo HS (2019) Using both emotional responses and sensory attribute intensities to predict consumer liking and preference toward vegetable juice products. Food Quality and Preference, 73, 75-85.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Samant SS, Hanson AD, Asare R, Nichols DS, Nna-Mba JP, Seo HS (2018) Effects of food neophobia on visual attention and sensory acceptance of ethnic-flavored foods. Culture and Brain, 6, 53-70.

Progress 07/11/17 to 09/30/17

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience includes not only food consumers, but also professionals who are invovled in food production, development, sales, and marketing. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During this period, research assistants and professionals had intensive experiences of measuring emotional responses to taste solution and beverage products. Our findings can be used for developing education materials and publishing both book chapters and peer-reviewed articles associated with the association between sensory and emotional responses in eating contexts. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?This study for the first time provides empirical evidence that both emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, beverage products can vary with product temperatures. Our findings highlight that processors, manufacturers, sensory professionals, and markets need to consider the impact of product temperature on dynamics of emotional responses and sensory attributes when evaluating or designing food or beverage products that are temperature-sensitive. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The researchers are going to conduct follow-up studies to better understand the effects of sensory cues on emotional responses toward food or beverage products in a variety of contextual setting. In addition, further studies will be conducted to develop an optimum model of predicting overall liking and preference based on both sensory perception and emotional responses toward beverage products commercially available in the market.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To fully understand how sensory cues of food and beverages affect emotional responses and sensory perception, the researchers conducted two studies as follows: Study 1 aimed to determine an optimum model of predicting overall liking and preference based on taste intensity (sensory perception) and emotions evoked by taste stimuli. One hundred and two participants were asked totaste water, sweet (sucrose), sour (citric acid), salty (salt), and bitter (caffeine) solutions, respectively. Their emotional responses to each taste stimulus were measured by a combination of self-reported emotion questionnaire, facial expressions, and autonomic nervous system responses. In addition, participants were asked to rate intensity and liking of taste stimuli. Participants were also asked to rank taste stimuli with respect to their preference. It was found that a combination of taste intensity and emotional responses measured using both self-rated questionnaire and facial expression analysis were found to best predict overall liking and preference for the taste stimuli used in this study. The impact of emotional responses on consumer liking and preference was greater than that of taste intensity. Study 2 aimed to determine whether emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, brewed coffee and green tea vary with product temperature. Using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) method, participants were asked to evaluate either coffee or green tea samples served at cold (5 C), ambient (25 C), and hot (65 C) temperatures with respect to emotional responses and sensory attributes.The results showed that coffee and green tea samples evaluated at 65 C were more frequently characterized by positive emotional responses (regardless of activation/arousal level) and favorable sensory attributes.Beverage samples evaluated at 25 C were more frequently associated with negative emotional responseswith low activation/arousal level. Finally, those evaluated at 5 C were more often characterized by negative emotional responseswith high activation/arousal level. Interestingly, both sensory attributes and emotional responses were identified as drivers of liking among females, whereas only emotional responses were found to serve as a driver of liking among males.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Samant SS, Chapko MJ, Seo HS (2017) Predicting consumer liking and preference based on emotional responses and sensory perception: A study with basic taste solutions. Food Research International, 100: 325-334.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Pramudya RC, Seo HS (2017) Influences of product temperature on emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, coffee and green tea beverages. Frontiers in Psychology, 8: e2264,DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02264.