ReviewGrape expectations: The role of cognitive influences in color–flavor interactions
Introduction
Our perception of the flavor of food and drink emerges from the integration of information provided by multiple unisensory inputs: Olfactory, gustatory, somatosensory, auditory, visual, and trigeminal information are all combined in order to produce what is commonly referred to as flavor perception (Amerine et al., 1965, Auvray and Spence, 2008; for a review, see Verhagen & Engelen, 2005). It is important to note that vision and (orthonasal) olfaction (see Frasnelli et al., 2007, Rozin, 1982) provide somewhat unique contributions to flavor perception in that they typically give us information prior to our consumption of food and drink (see Hutchings, 1977; note that for most packaged foods visual cues may be the only information we initially receive about the food). This contrasts with the more proximal senses of taste, touch, audition, and retronasal olfaction that normally only provide flavor information once the food or drink item has entered the mouth. Of the many visual cues we receive (opacity, pearlescence, etc.), color, in particular, seems to constitute a central part of our experience of food and drink (Hutchings, 1977), because of its role as an indicator of edibility (e.g., Clydesdale, 1993, Wheatley, 1973), and because of its role in suggesting both the likely identity and intensity of flavor (see Lavin and Lawless, 1998, Maga, 1974, Schutz, 1954, Zampini et al., 2007). As a result, many researchers have argued that color may play a particularly influential role in our experience of flavor (see Schutz and Wahl, 1981, Zampini et al., 2007).
In fact, the study of color–flavor interactions represents a very active area of research, with more than 100 studies having been published on this topic since the early 1930s, when the effect of color on human flavor perception was first documented (e.g., Christensen, 1985, Delwiche, 2003, Moir, 1936, Clydesdale, 1993, Hall, 1958, for reviews). For example, in one oft-cited study, Johnson and Clydesdale (1982) revealed a significant effect of color on flavor perception, reporting that the increasing addition of red color to a drink had a statistically significant effect on people’s perception of sweetness. Sweetness in darker colored solutions was rated as 2–10% higher than the lighter reference despite the fact that the actual sucrose concentration was 1% lower (see DuBose et al., 1980, Duncker, 1939, Garber et al., 2000, Philipsen et al., 1995, Roth et al., 1988, Strugnell, 1997, Zellner and Durlach, 2003, for other studies of color–flavor interactions).
Color cues have been shown to have a significant effect on people’s perception of many different foods, including chocolate (Duncker, 1939), butter (Rohm, Strobl, & Jaros, 1997), cheese and jelly (Christensen, 1985), steaks (Malphrus, 1957, Wheatley, 1973), sherbets (Hall, 1958), sweets (Teerling, 1992), cake (DuBose et al., 1980; Experiment 4), etc. However, by far the majority of research has been concerned with people’s perception of flavored drinks (e.g., DuBose et al., 1980, Hyman, 1983, Johnson et al., 1983, Johnson et al., 1982, Stillman, 1993, Strugnell, 1997, Tuorila-Ollikainen, 1982, Tuorila-Ollikainen et al., 1984, Zampini et al., 2008, Zampini et al., 2007; see also Timberlake & Bridle, 1983), presumably due to the ease of stimulus control and creation that such experimental materials afford. Although many studies have compellingly documented the effects of color on flavor perception, it is important to note that many contradictory findings have also been reported in the literature. In particular, a number of studies have failed to demonstrate any effect of color on human flavor perception (e.g., Alley and Alley, 1998, Christensen, 1985, Frank et al., 1989, Pangborn et al., 1963). For example, Alley and Alley reported no effect of color on participants’ ratings of sweetness for red, blue, yellow, green, and clear sugar–water samples. Similarly, Frank et al. found that adding red food coloring to a strawberry-flavored drink failed to increase perceived sweetness ratings when assessed relative to a clear drink.1
In trying to determine which factors might help to explain these discrepant results, it becomes apparent that despite the abundance of published studies on the effects of color on flavor perception in humans, surprisingly little is known about the cognitive constraints that may mediate how a given sensory (i.e., visual) input is interpreted in the context of multisensory flavor perception. In this review, we put forward the hypothesis that the inconsistent results reported across previously-published studies may, in part, reflect the fact that differences in people’s sensory expectations (as rooted in the specific associations that they pick up from their environments) can lead to differences in the flavor characteristics that sensory cues like color come to signify. More specifically, we compare color–flavor associations across cultures (cf. Aslam, 2006, Courtney, 1986, Lucchelli et al., 1978, Wheatley, 1973), under the assumption that exposure to certain specific color–flavor co-pairings may well be fairly consistent within these population subgroups. Critically, cognitive influences, like expectations, have been shown to influence people’s flavor experiences (cf. Yeomans, Chambers, Blumenthal, & Blake, 2008) in ways that depend on a certain set of expectation and experimental constraints (see Clydesdale et al., 1992, Zellner and Durlach, 2002; and Zellner, Strickhouser, & Tornow, 2004, for a comprehensive review).
Section snippets
A cognitive approach to color–flavor interactions
Color appears to represent a particularly good example of a cognitive-based influence on multisensory flavor perception (see Hutchings, 1977). Different colors can carry different semantic meanings depending on the specific color–flavor pairings that individuals are systematically exposed to in their environments. This assertion is rooted in the model of color and psychological function proposed by Elliot and Maier in their review paper published in 2007. There, the authors propose that colors
The study of color–flavor associations in past literature
We begin by considering the extent to which people have linked colors of food and drink to flavors, and what these particular color–flavor relationships are. In one oft-cited study by DuBose et al. (1980), the participants had to identify the fruit flavors of drinks that incorporated a variety of different color–flavor pairings, some of which were ‘appropriate’ (e.g., a red color paired with a cherry-flavored drink) and others which were ‘inappropriate’ (e.g., a red color paired with a lime
Participants
Twenty British participants completed this experiment at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford and 15 Taiwanese participants completed this experiment at the Psychology Department, National Taiwan University. Participants were given a £5 UK Sterling gift voucher and no compensation, respectively, in return for their participation. The experimental procedure used was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.
Apparatus and stimuli
Results
The pattern of flavor responses provided for each color within each group of participants (see Table 1) was found to be significantly different from that of a uniform distribution (British: [p < .01] and Taiwanese: [p < .01], according to the results of a 1-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov Test (after correcting for multiple comparisons, p < .01, was considered as significant; see Ben-Horim & Levy, 1981; pp. 780–786). The results indicate that both groups of participants exhibited robust color–flavor
Discussion
The results of this study highlight the existence of significant cultural differences between the color–flavor associations for certain colors but not for others, even though the sample size was relatively small. For example, when presented with a brown drink,
How do sensory-specific expectations mediate flavor perception?
How have the expectations induced by colors (as rooted in learned associations such as those mentioned above) been shown to mediate specific color–flavor interactions, preferences, behavioral responses, and hedonic ratings of foodstuffs in recent published studies? A wide range of research has explored the role that labeling can play in mediating people’s expectations and their subsequent flavor experiences (Cardello and Sawyer, 1992, Deliza and MacFie, 1996, Kahkonen and Tuorila, 1998, Lee et
Implications and future directions
In future experiments, the idiosyncratic nature of color–flavor pairings should be considered – whether by controlling for cultural background or by training participants using associative-learning tasks – in order to most effectively control for participants’ expectations. After all, if one person’s color–flavor pairings are different from those of another, this could have significant consequences on how sensory cues (e.g., color) interact with and mediate expectations, and consequently, human
Concluding remarks
In conclusion, the evidence reviewed here highlights the importance of considering the specific cognitive constraints driving the effects of color cues on people’s flavor perception. We hypothesize that the discrepancies that seemingly pervade the literature may, at least in part, reflect differences in the expectations that participants had in the various studies. Thus, determining (1) people’s specific color–flavor associations; (2) how these associations mediate sensory experiences and
Acknowledgments
The authors confirm that they have no competing interests. Special thanks to Avi Feller for help with the statistical analysis of the data presented in the manuscript and to Yi-Chuan Chen and Mary Ngo for help in running the experiment. M.A.S was supported by the Rhodes Trust.
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