Light colors and comfortable warmth: Crossmodal correspondences between thermal sensations and color lightness influence consumer behavior

Odors modulate color appearance

Our brain constantly combines multisensory information from our surrounding environment. Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these sensations interact to form our own subjective experience. This integration process can have a profound impact on the resulting experience and can alter our subjective reality. Crossmodal correspondences are the consistent associations between stimulus features in different sensory modalities. These correspondences are presumed to be bidirectional in nature and have been shown to influence our perception in a variety of different sensory modalities. Vision is dominant in our multisensory perception and can influence how we perceive information in our other senses, including olfaction. We explored the effect that different odors have on human color perception by presenting olfactory stimuli while asking observers to adjust a color patch to be devoid of hue (neutral gray task). We found a shift in the perceived neutral gray point to be biased toward warmer colors. Four out of five of our odors also trend toward their expected crossmodal correspondences. For instance, when asking observers to perform the neutral gray task while presenting the smell of cherry, the perceptually achromatic stimulus was biased toward a red-brown. Using an achromatic adjustment task, we were able to demonstrate a small but systematic effect of the presence of odors on human color perception.

Crossmodal associations between visual textures and temperature concepts

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 in 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 a range of association 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.

The effects of manipulating the visual environment on thermal perception: A structured narrative review

When exposed to ambient temperatures that cause thermal discomfort, a human's behavioral responses are more effective than autonomic ones at compensating for thermal imbalance. These behavioral thermal responses are typically directed by an individual's perception of the thermal environment. Perception of the environment is a holistic amalgamation of human senses, and in some circumstances, humans prioritize visual information. Existing research has considered this in the specific case of thermal perception, and this review investigates the state of the literature examining this effect. We identify the frameworks, research rationales, and potential mechanisms that underpin the evidence base in this area. Our review identified 31 experiments, comprising 1392 participants that met the inclusion criteria. Methodological heterogeneity was observed in the assessment of thermal perception, and a variety of methods were employed to manipulate the visual environment. However, the majority of the included experiments (80%) reported a difference in thermal perception after the visual environment was manipulated. There was limited research exploring any effects on physiological variables (e.g. skin and core temperature). This review has wide-ranging implications for the broad discipline of (thermo)physiology, psychology, psychophysiology, neuroscience, ergonomics, and behavior.

Eye-tracking research on sensory and consumer science: A review, pitfalls and future directions

Visual processing is a core cognitive element of sensory and consumer science. Consumers visually attend to food types, packaging, label design, advertisements, supermarket shelves, food menus, and other visible information. During the past decade, sensory and consumer science have used eye tracking to elucidate visual processing by consumers. This review paper summarizes earlier findings in terms of bottom-up (i.e., stimulus-driven) processing such as visual salience, size, and top-down (i.e., goal-driven) processing such as goals, task instructions, task complexity, and emotions. Downstream effects of gaze on choice are also reviewed. Pitfalls and future directions of eye-tracking research on sensory and consumer science are also discussed.

The temperature of emotions

Emotions and temperature are closely related through embodied processes, and people seem to associate temperature concepts with emotions. While this relationship is often evidenced by everyday language (e.g., cold and warm feelings), what remains missing to date is a systematic study that holistically analyzes how and why people associate specific temperatures with emotions. The present research aimed to investigate the associations between temperature concepts and emotion adjectives on both explicit and implicit levels. In Experiment 1, we evaluated explicit associations between twelve pairs of emotion adjectives derived from the circumplex model of affect, and five different temperature concepts ranging from 0°C to 40°C, based on responses from 403 native speakers of four different languages (English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese). The results of Experiment 1 revealed that, across languages, the temperatures were associated with different regions of the circumplex model. The 0°C and 10°C were associated with negative-valanced, low-arousal emotions, while 20°C was associated with positive-valanced, low-to-medium-arousal emotions. Moreover, 30°C was associated with positive-valanced, high-arousal emotions; and 40°C was associated with high-arousal and either positive- or negative-valanced emotions. In Experiment 2 (N = 102), we explored whether these temperature-emotion associations were also present at the implicit level, by conducting Implicit Association Tests (IATs) with temperature words (cold and hot) and opposing pairs of emotional adjectives for each dimension of valence (Unhappy/Dissatisfied vs. Happy/Satisfied) and arousal (Passive/Quiet vs. Active/Alert) on native English speakers. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that participants held implicit associations between the word hot and positive-valanced and high-arousal emotions. Additionally, the word cold was associated with negative-valanced and low-arousal emotions. These findings provide evidence for the existence of temperature-emotion associations at both explicit and implicit levels across languages.

Influences of Medical Crowdfunding Website Design Features on Trust and Intention to Donate: Controlled Laboratory Experiment

Background

As a type of donation-based crowdfunding, medical crowdfunding has gradually become an important way for patients who have difficulty paying medical bills to seek help from the public. However, many people still have limited confidence in donating money to medical crowdfunding projects.

Objective

Given that the features of a medical crowdfunding website may be important to gain users’ trust, this study draws upon two-factor and trust theories to explore how different design features of medical crowdfunding websites affect potential donors’ cognition-based trust and affect-based trust, and how these types of trust affect the intention to donate.

Methods

A 2 (informativeness: high vs low) × 2 (visual cues: cool color vs warm color) × 2 (social cues: with vs without) between-subject laboratory experiment was performed to validate our research model. A total of 320 undergraduate students recruited from a university in China participated in the controlled laboratory experiment.

Results

Cognition-based trust (β=.528, P<.001) and affect-based trust (β=.344, P<.001) exerted significant effects on the intention to donate of potential donors of medical crowdfunding. Informativeness as a hygiene factor positively influenced potential donors’ cognition-based trust (F_1,311=49.764, P<.001) and affect-based trust (F_1,311=16.093, P<.001), whereas social cues as a motivating factor significantly influenced potential donors’ cognition-based trust (F_1,311=38.160, P<.001) and affect-based trust (F_1,311=23.265, P<.001). However, the color of the webpages affected the two dimensions of trust differently. Specifically, medical crowdfunding webpages with warm colors were more likely to induce affect-based trust than those with cool colors (F_1,311=17.120, P<.001), whereas no significant difference was found between the effects of cool and warm colors on cognition-based trust (F_1,311=1.707, P=.19).

Conclusions

This study deepens our understanding of the relationships among the design features of medical crowdfunding websites, trust, and intention to donate, and provides guidelines for managers of medical crowdfunding platforms to enhance potential donors’ trust-building by improving the website design features.

Virtual Terroir and the Premium Coffee Experience

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 virtual reality (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.

Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Temperature and Taste Attributes

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.

Temperature-Based Crossmodal Correspondences: Causes and Consequences

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.

Assessing the Relationship Between Drive for Thinness and Taste-Shape Correspondences

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.

Assessing the Influence of Visual-Taste Congruency on Perceived Sweetness and Product Liking in Immersive VR

This study was designed to assess whether the combined effect of taste-congruent and incongruent extrinsic visual cues presented in virtual reality (VR) influences the perception of sweetness and product liking. Three VR environments (sweet-congruent, sweet-incongruent, and neutral) were created based on the evidence in existing literature. Participants tasted the same beverage in three VR environments and evaluated the environment and beverage liking, as well as perceived taste intensity (sweetness, sourness, and bitterness), congruency, comfort, and environment vividness. Frontal EEG alpha asymmetry (FAA) was also recorded as a complementary physiological measurement of overall liking. The results showed that the perceived sweetness of the beverage was significantly elevated in a sweet-congruent environment versus the other environments. Visual-taste congruency did not seem to have an effect on beverage liking and overall liking, whereas an increase in environment liking was found in the incongruent environment versus the other environments. These findings confirmed the significant influence of taste-specific visual cues on flavour perception, while the successful use of VR in the study provided insight into future applications of taste-specific VR environment in the modulation of flavour perception and sugar reduction.

Round Faces Are Associated with Sweet Foods: The Role of Crossmodal Correspondence in Social Perception

In retail settings, social perception of other peoples' preferences is fundamental to successful interpersonal interactions (e.g., product recommendations, gift-giving). This type of perception must be made with little information, very often based solely on facial cues. Although people are capable of accurately predicting others' preferences from facial cues, we do not yet know how such inferences are made by crossmodal correspondence (arbitrary sensory associations) between facial cues and inferred attributes. The crossmodal correspondence literature implies the existence of sensory associations between shapes and tastes, and people consistently match roundness and angularity to sweet and sour foods, respectively. Given that peoples' faces have dimensions characterized by roundness and angularity, it may be plausible that people infer others' preferences by relying on the correspondence between facial roundness and taste. Based on a crossmodal correspondence framework, this study aimed to reveal the role of shape⁻taste correspondences in social perception. We investigated whether Japanese participants infer others' taste (sweet/sour) preferences based on facial shapes (roundness/angularity). The results showed that participants reliably inferred that round-faced (vs. angular-faced) individuals preferred sweet foods (Study 1). Round-faced individuals and sweet foods were well matched, and the matching mediated the inference of other person's preferences (Study 2). An association between facial roundness and inference of sweet taste preferences was observed in more natural faces, and perceived obesity mediated this association (Study 3). These findings advance the applicability of crossmodal correspondences in social perception, and imply the pervasiveness of prejudicial bias in the marketplace.

A Sweet Voice: The Influence of Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Taste and Vocal Pitch on Advertising Effectiveness

We have seen a rapid growth of interest in cross-modal correspondences between sound and taste over recent years. People consistently associate higher-pitched sounds with sweet/sour foods, while lower-pitched sounds tend to be associated with bitter foods. The human voice is key in broadcast advertising, and the role of voice in communication generally is partly characterized by acoustic parameters of pitch. However, it remains unknown whether voice pitch and taste interactively influence consumer behavior. Since consumers prefer congruent sensory information, it is plausible that voice pitch and taste interactively influence consumers’ responses to advertising stimuli. Based on the cross-modal correspondence phenomenon, this study aimed to elucidate the role played by voice pitch–taste correspondences in advertising effectiveness. Participants listened to voiceover advertisements (at a higher or lower pitch than the original narrator’s voice) for three food products with distinct tastes (sweet, sour, and bitter) and rated their buying intention (an indicator of advertising effectiveness). The results show that the participants were likely to exhibit greater buying intention toward both sweet and sour food when they listened to higher-pitched (vs lower-pitched) voiceover advertisements. The influence of a higher pitch on sweet and sour food preferences was observed in only two of the three studies: studies 1 and 2 for sour food, and studies 2 and 3 for sweet food. These findings emphasize the role that voice pitch–taste correspondence plays in preference formation, and advance the applicability of cross-modal correspondences to business.