The emoji scale: A facial scale for the 21st century

Acceptability of School Menus: A Systematic Review of Assessment Methods

The school meal promotes healthy eating habits through nutritionally adequate preparations. Consequently, it prevents obesity and malnutrition, favoring learning. This systematic review aimed at investigating the methods for evaluating the acceptance of school menus offered by school feeding programs (SFPs) around the world. Specific search strategies were conducted on PubMed, Lilacs, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, Google Scholar, and ProQuest Global. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed using the Meta-Analysis Statistical Assessment and Review Instrument. A total of 89 studies were included. The countries with the highest number of studies were Brazil (n = 42), South Korea (n = 13), and the United States (n = 12). The most used methods (69.66%) were numerical scales, with a higher prevalence for the 5-point scale (50.56%). Other methods included questionnaires and/or interviews with objective and/or subjective questions (44.94%); and mathematical formulas and/or visual estimates evaluating the consumption of food and leftovers (40.45%). The prevalent use of the 5-point hedonic scale may be due to its low cost, simplicity, ease of elaboration, application speed, and student understanding. Mathematical formulas and/or visual estimation were used by about 40% of the studies, but it is difficult to compare studies.

Emotional responses to taste and smell stimuli: Self-reports, physiological measures, and a potential role for individual and genetic factors

Taste and olfaction elicit conscious feelings by direct connection with the neural circuits of emotions that affects physiological responses in the body (e.g., heart rate and skin conductance). While sensory attributes are strong determinants of food liking, other factors such as emotional reactions to foods may be better predictors of consumer choices even for products that are equally-liked. Thus, important insights can be gained for understanding the full spectrum of emotional reactions to foods that inform the activities of product developers and marketers, eating psychologist and nutritionists, and policy makers. Today, self-reported questionnaires and physiological measures are the most common tools applied to study variations in emotional perception. The present review discusses these methodological approaches, underlining their different strengths and weaknesses. We also discuss a small, emerging literature suggesting that individual differences and genetic variations in taste and smell perception, like the genetic ability to perceive the bitter compound PROP, may also play a role in emotional reactions to aromas and foods.

Does the Number of Likes Affect Adolescents' Emotions? The Moderating Role of Social Comparison and Feedback-Seeking on Instagram

Instagram is a social networking site (SNS) that facilitate the social-comparison and feedback-seeking (SCFS) processes, which are particularly relevant during adolescence. Likes represent numeric evaluative feedback and seem to be considered as a form of social reward. In this research we examine some psychosocial factors that could influence the Instagram usage intensity (i.e. SCFS and motivations) and analyze the moderating role of SCFS in the relationship between the number of likes on posts and adolescents' emotions. The sample consisted of 182 adolescent students aged between 13 and 18 years (M = 15.35 years, SD = 1.11). The results show that the social interaction, storage, and gossip motivations mediate the relationship between SCFS and Instagram usage intensity, and that the influence of the number of likes on emotions depended on the degree of SCFS. The discussion of the findings emphasizes that likes have a special social and affective relevance for adolescents with high SCFS, who might become more emotionally susceptible to the feedback they received from their audience on Instagram. This research could be a precedent to future research and the development of intervention programs based on the responsible use of SNSs in an educative context.

Effects of Category Labeling With Emojis on Likert-Type Scales on the Psychometric Properties of Measurements

Today, emoji have become a popular option for anchoring the categories of Likert-type scales applied to not only adults but also children. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of category labeling with emoji by comparing the psychometric properties of the emoji- and verbal-anchored versions of the mathematics motivation scale applied to students aged 8–11 years (grades 3, 4, and 5). The participants of the study comprised 658 students. According to the research results, students used the upper categories of the scale more intensively in the emoji-anchored version than in the verbal-anchored one. Parallel to this, the means calculated for the emoji-anchored version were found to be significantly higher. Moreover, the results of the research revealed that the verbal-anchored scale form yielded more reliable and valid measures than the emoji-anchored version.

Probiotic fermented milks: Children's emotional responses using a product-specific emoji list

This study aimed to develop and validate a product-specific emoji list and use this list to analyse children's emotional responses associated with the consumption of probiotic fermented milks prepared with different probiotic strains. Furthermore, the overall liking of the products was studied during a sensory test. Six formulations were studied: Bifidobacterium BB12 (BB), Lactobacillus acidophilus L3 (LA3), Lactobacillus acidophilus LA 05 (LA5), Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis (LL), Lacticaseibacillus casei 01 (LC), and Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (CONV). A total of 132 children (7-14 years old) participated in two study phases: development (n = 32) and validation (n = 100) of the list. Fifteen emoji were selected to be included in the product-specific list, which had a high frequency of citations in the first phase. The formulations with the highest overall liking (LL, BB, LC and CONV) were correlated with positive emoji, while the least-liked formulations (LA3 and LA5) were associated with negative emoji. Furthermore, the utilisation of emoji enabled the differentiation among formulations with similar overall liking. Therefore, this study developed and validated an emoji list to be used in the evaluation of fermented milks by children. The results suggest that the type of probiotic culture impacted the sensory characteristics of fermented milks, supporting the use of Bifidobacterium, L. lactis or L. casei in these products.

Design and Development of an Instrument on Knowledge of Food Safety, Practices, and Risk Perception Addressed to Children and Adolescents from Low-Income Families

In the fight against foodborne diseases, expanding access to information for different groups is needed. In this aspect, it is crucial to evaluate the target audience’s particularities. This study constructed and validated an instrument containing three questionnaires to identify the level of knowledge, practices, and risk perception of food safety by low-income students between 11 and 14 years old. The following steps were used: systematic search of the databases; conducting and analyzing focus groups; questionnaires development; and questionnaires analysis. After two judges’ rounds, the final version was reached with 11 knowledge items, 11 practice items, and five risk perception items. The content validation index values were higher than 0.80. The adopted methodology considered the students’ understanding and perceptions, as well the appropriate language to be used. Besides, it allowed the development of questionnaires that directly and straightforwardly covers the rules set by the World Health Organization for foodborne disease control called Five Keys to Safer Food (keep clean; separate raw and cooked; cook thoroughly; keep food at safe temperatures; and use safe water and raw materials). Its use can result in a diagnosis for elaborating educational proposals and other actions against foodborne illness in the most vulnerable population.

The Meaning of Emoji to Describe Food Experiences in Pre-Adolescents

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

Food Trying and Liking Related to Grade Level and Meal Participation

School-based child nutrition programs provide students with meals and snacks that align with guidelines for a healthy eating pattern. However, participation is not universal, and research on the determinants of food selection is needed to improve school nutrition practices and policies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between grade level (i.e., grade school, middle school, or high school) as well as meal participation category (i.e., only breakfast, only lunch, or both) and food trying and liking in a large urban school district. Outcomes were measured using an online survey completed by students from 2nd through 12th grade (n = 21,540). Breakfast and lunch item liking scores were higher among the grade school and middle school students than among the high school students. Breakfast and lunch liking scores were also higher among those who participated in both breakfast and lunch as opposed to those who only participated in one meal. Food item liking scores were positively correlated with the percentage of students who had tried the particular foods (r = 0.52, p < 0.001), and the number of foods tried was dependent on both grade level and meal participation category (F(4, 21,531) = 10.994, p < 0.001). In this survey of students, both grade level and meal participation category were found to be related to the liking of foods, while foods that were tried more often tended to be liked more. Future studies should consider grade level and meal participation when exploring student preferences. School nutrition programs should also consider these factors when assessing satisfaction.

Influences of sensory attribute intensity, emotional responses, and non-sensory factors on purchase intent toward mixed-vegetable juice products under informed tasting condition

Product-related sensory and non-sensory cues have been studied in the past to understand purchase behavior among consumers. However, there has been little research related to integrating emotional responses with such cues to achieve better prediction of consumer purchase behavior. This study aimed to determine the impacts of sensory attribute intensities (SAI), non-sensory factors (NSF), and emotions on purchase intent and consumer choice. Emotional responses were measured using a self-reported emotion questionnaire (EQ), facial expression analysis (FE), and autonomic nervous system responses (ANS). Sixty-nine adults were asked to view product labels, and look at, smell, and drink five commercially-available vegetable juice samples. For each sample, SAI, NSF, EQ, FE, ANS, and purchase intent ratings were measured. Participants were also asked to select the one they would be most likely to buy. Results showed that the five samples differed significantly with respect to SAI, NSF, and emotional responses measured by EQ and FEs. SAI (bitterness intensity) and NSF (brand liking) played an extremely important role in purchase-related behavior of vegetable juice products. Correlation analysis and a PLSR prediction model further revealed that products with higher ratings of purchase intent elicited lower levels of negative emotions and higher levels of positive emotions, as measured by EQ as well as FE. In conclusion, this study shows that NSF in combination with SAI and emotions measured using EQ and FE can modulate consumer purchase intent toward vegetable juice products under informed tasting conditions.

Fuzzy Nonbalanced Hedonic Scale (F-NBHS): A New Method for Treatments of Food Preference Data Collected with Hedonic Scales of Points

Hedonic point scales are widely used in food preference studies. However, in this type of scale, the symmetrical distribution of categories and inaccuracy of the responses may interfere with the results of the research. This paper proposes the fuzzy nonbalanced hedonic scale (F-NBHS) as a new method for treatments of food preference data collected with hedonic scales of 9 points and can be generalized to scales with a different number of points. Data analysis from F-NBHS aims to improve the limitations presented by a traditional treatment, especially regarding the distribution of numerical values between the categories and the inaccuracy of the responses. The validation of the proposed scale was carried out through a food preference research done within a Portuguese university. A set of 64 foods, divided into 8 food groups, was evaluated by 119 students in two experiments. The frequency and variability of the data were studied according to the categories in different areas of the scale. Findings showed that the structure of the proposed scale is observed in the behavior of experimental data and intermediate areas, which indicated the intensity of perception and variability of different responses from other areas of the scale. The data used with F-NBHS were more satisfactory in relation to standard deviations and consensus index measurements compared with a traditional treatment. Thus, it is concluded that the F-NBHS scale is a more efficient and robust method for the treatment of dietary preference information compared to a traditional treatment.

Health beliefs towards kefir correlate with emotion and attitude: A study using an emoji scale in Brazil

Emojis can be used to explore food-evoked emotions in order to provide information that can support the product development and marketing decisions. This study aimed to evaluate consumers' acceptance, purchase intent and emotional responses to milk beverages, with and without kefir added, before and after these consumers were informed about the products' composition (0%, 15%, 30% and 50% m/v) and health claims toward kefir (blind and informed tests, respectively). Emotional responses were assessed by emoji use within a RATA questionnaire in order quantify the perceived significance of the emojis chosen. In the informed test, the consumers' perception of the sensory attributes of the milk beverages, such as their perception of an acid taste in added kefir beverages was shown to have changed. Overall, participants attributed significantly higher acceptance and purchase intent scores to added kefir beverages after they had been informed on its health benefits. In addition, expressions of positive emotion increased when participants were exposed to stimuli related to health benefits of kefir (15%, 30% and 50% m/v), while negative expressions of emotion decreased. The provided information of kefir modified valence and arousal in subjects, and it can be said that to 30% of kefir can be added to yogurt without compromising its sensory acceptability. Thus, health benefits alone cannot improve product acceptance, since participants found a 50% addition of kefir to be unpleasant when tasted during a blind test. Mixed beverages may present a probiotic beverage alternative for consumers who dislike kefir milk, but want to include it in their diets. The implications of liking and purchase intent and how they are linked to emotions are discussed in this paper as well.

A Systematic Review of Emoji: Current Research and Future Perspectives

A growing body of research explores emoji, which are visual symbols in computer mediated communication (CMC). In the 20 years since the first set of emoji was released, research on it has been on the increase, albeit in a variety of directions. We reviewed the extant body of research on emoji and noted the development, usage, function, and application of emoji. In this review article, we provide a systematic review of the extant body of work on emoji, reviewing how they have developed, how they are used differently, what functions they have and what research has been conducted on them in different domains. Furthermore, we summarize directions for future research on this topic.

The EmojiGrid as a Tool to Assess Experienced and Perceived Emotions

In a recent study on food-evoked emotions, we observed that people often misunderstood the currently available affective self-report tools. We, therefore, developed a new intuitive and language-independent self-report instrument called the EmojiGrid: a rectangular response grid labeled with facial icons (emoji) that express different degrees of valence and arousal. We found that participants intuitively and reliably reported their affective appraisal of food by clicking on the EmojiGrid, even without verbal instructions. In this study, we investigated whether the EmojiGrid can also serve as a tool to assess one’s own (experienced) emotions and perceived emotions of others. In the first experiment, participants (N = 90) used the EmojiGrid to report their own emotions, evoked by affective images from a database with corresponding normative ratings (obtained with a 9-point self-assessment mannikin scale). In the second experiment, participants (N = 61) used the EmojiGrid to report the perceived emotional state of persons shown in different affective situations, in pictures from a database with corresponding normative ratings (obtained with a 7-point Likert scale). For both experiments, the affective (valence and arousal) ratings obtained with the EmojiGrid show excellent agreement with the data provided in the literature (intraclass correlations of at least 0.90). Also, the relation between valence and arousal shows the classic U-shape at the group level. Thus, the EmojiGrid appears to be a useful graphical self-report instrument for the assessment of evoked and perceived emotions.

EmojiGrid: A 2D Pictorial Scale for the Assessment of Food Elicited Emotions

Research on food experience is typically challenged by the way questions are worded. We therefore developed the EmojiGrid: a graphical (language-independent) intuitive self-report tool to measure food-related valence and arousal. In a first experiment participants rated the valence and the arousing quality of 60 food images, using either the EmojiGrid or two independent visual analog scales (VAS). The valence ratings obtained with both tools strongly agree. However, the arousal ratings only agree for pleasant food items, but not for unpleasant ones. Furthermore, the results obtained with the EmojiGrid show the typical universal U-shaped relation between the mean valence and arousal that is commonly observed for a wide range of (visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory) affective stimuli, while the VAS tool yields a positive linear association between valence and arousal. We hypothesized that this disagreement reflects a lack of proper understanding of the arousal concept in the VAS condition. In a second experiment we attempted to clarify the arousal concept by asking participants to rate the valence and intensity of the taste associated with the perceived food items. After this adjustment the VAS and EmojiGrid yielded similar valence and arousal ratings (both showing the universal U-shaped relation between the valence and arousal). A comparison with the results from the first experiment showed that VAS arousal ratings strongly depended on the actual wording used, while EmojiGrid ratings were not affected by the framing of the associated question. This suggests that the EmojiGrid is largely self-explaining and intuitive. To test this hypothesis, we performed a third experiment in which participants rated food images using the EmojiGrid without an associated question, and we compared the results to those of the first two experiments. The EmojiGrid ratings obtained in all three experiments closely agree. We conclude that the EmojiGrid appears to be a valid and intuitive affective self-report tool that does not rely on written instructions and that can efficiently be used to measure food-related emotions.

EmojiGrid: A 2D pictorial scale for cross-cultural emotion assessment of negatively and positively valenced food

Because of the globalization of world food markets there is a growing need for valid and language independent self-assessment tools to measure food-related emotions. We recently introduced the EmojiGrid as a language-independent, graphical affective self-report tool. The EmojiGrid is a Cartesian grid that is labeled with facial icons (emoji) expressing different degrees of valence and arousal. Users can report their subjective ratings of valence and arousal by marking the location on the area of the grid that corresponds to the emoji that best represent their affective state when perceiving a given food or beverage. In a previous study we found that the EmojiGrid is robust, self-explaining and intuitive: valence and arousal ratings were independent of framing and verbal instructions. This suggests that the EmojiGrid may be a valuable tool for cross-cultural studies. To test this hypothesis, we performed an online experiment in which respondents from Germany (GE), Japan (JP), the Netherlands (NL) and the United Kingdom (UK) rated valence and arousal for 60 different food images (covering a large part of the affective space) using the EmojiGrid. The results show that the nomothetic relation between valence and arousal has the well-known U-shape for all groups. The European groups (GE, NL and UK) closely agree in their overall rating behavior. Compared to the European groups, the Japanese group systematically gave lower mean arousal ratings to low valenced images and lower mean valence ratings to high valenced images. These results agree with known cultural response characteristics. We conclude that the EmojiGrid is potentially a valid and language-independent affective self-report tool for cross-cultural research on food-related emotions. It reliably reproduces the familiar nomothetic U-shaped relation between valence and arousal across cultures, with shape variations reflecting established cultural characteristics.