Using both emotional responses and sensory attribute intensities to predict consumer liking and preference toward vegetable juice products

The Effect of Response Conditions on Food Images-Evoked Emotions Measured Using the Valence × Arousal Circumplex-Inspired Emotion Questionnaire (CEQ)

In 2020, a single-response-based, valence × arousal circumplex-inspired emotion questionnaire (CEQ) was developed. Using a between-participants design, previous studies have found that a multiple response (MR) condition better discriminated test samples (e.g., written food names) based on their evoked emotions than a single response (SR) condition. This research, comprising Studies 1 and 2, aimed to determine the effect of response conditions (i.e., SR vs. MR) on emotional responses to food image samples, using a within-participants design. In Study 1, 105 Korean participants were asked to select a pair of emotion terms (i.e., SR condition) or select all pairs representing their evoked emotions (i.e., MR condition) from a list of 12 pairs of emotion terms of the CEQ, in response to the 14 food images. Both SR and MR conditions were tested within a remote (online) session. To minimize both a potential carry-over effect of the "within-participants design" and an influence of environmental factors in the remote testing, Study 2 asked 64 U.S. participants to do so over two separated sessions on two different days in a controlled laboratory setting. In both Studies 1 and 2, participants selected the CEQ's emotion-term pairs in the MR condition more frequently than in the SR condition, leading to the MR condition's higher capacity to discriminate test samples. While the configurations of the correspondence analysis biplots drawn in the SR and MR conditions were similar, those in the MR condition were more likely to be similar to the configurations of the principal component analysis biplots drawn from the ratings of valence and arousal for food image samples. In conclusion, this study provides robust empirical evidence that the MR condition can perform better in capturing sample differences in food-evoked emotions, while the SR condition is also effective in characterizing emotional profiles of test samples. Our findings will provide practical insights to sensory professionals, enabling them to effectively leverage the CEQ or its variants when measuring food-evoked emotions.

Effect of Tomato, Beetroot and Carrot Juice Addition on Physicochemical, Antioxidant and Texture Properties of Wheat Bread

Bakery products, including bread, are important components of the diet of people all over the world. One of the food industry's goals is to improve its quality in the context of healthiness and physical parameters. Consumers' perception of sensory quality is an important aspect of food choice. Thus, the study aimed to enhance nutritional parameters (antioxidant capacity, content of phenolic compounds) together with maintaining or increasing bread quality (texture, color, volume and sensory properties). Among vegetable juices, tomato, beetroot and carrot were selected, as they are easily accessible in Europe and are inexpensive. At the same time, those juices are known to be high in antioxidants. In this study, the effect of substituting recipe water with tomato, beetroot and carrot juices (replacement level: 15, 30, 50% v/v) was evaluated in terms of the specific volume, texture, color, acidity, polyphenol contents, antioxidant and sensory properties. It was concluded that juice content had a significant positive impact on physicochemical parameters such as volume, color, acidity, as well as the antioxidant activity of breads. The carrot and beetroot juices were the most efficient in terms of shaping wheat bread properties, especially in terms of antioxidant activity.

You Eat How You Think: A Review on the Impact of Cognitive Styles on Food Perception and Behavior

Sensory perception is understood to be a complex area of research that requires investigations from a variety of different perspectives. Although researchers have tried to better understand consumers’ perception of food, one area that has been minimally explored is how psychological cognitive theories can help them explain consumer perceptions, behaviors, and decisions in food-related experiences. The concept of cognitive styles has existed for nearly a century, with the majority of cognitive style theories existing along a continuum with two bookends. Some of the more common theories such as individualist-collectivist, left-brain-right-brain, and convergent-divergent theories each offered their own unique insight into better understanding consumer behavior. However, these theories often focused only on niche applications or on specific aspects of cognition. More recently, the analytic-holistic cognitive style theory was developed to encompass many of these prior theoretical components and apply them to more general cognitive tendencies of individuals. Through applying the analytic-holistic theory and focusing on modern cultural psychology work, this review may allow researchers to be able to answer one of the paramount questions of sensory and consumer sciences: how and why do consumers perceive and respond to food stimuli the way that they do?

Creating foods for older adults: Emotional responses and liking of microwave-assisted thermal sterilization processed meals

The purpose of this study was to examine emotional and liking responses to foods designed for older adults and made using microwave-assisted thermal sterilization technology (MATS). Six chicken pasta meals (three each with and without herbs) were formulated with three concentrations of salt at 100%, 75%, and 50%. Seventy-six community-dwelling older adults conducted sensory and emotional evaluations. Sensory testing involved measuring liking of various sensory attributes using a 9-point hedonic scale, Just-about-right scales to measure appropriateness of the intensity of the attributes, and check-all-that-apply questions to identify perceived flavor and texture attributes. EsSense25 methodology was used for capturing food-evoked emotional responses. Significant differences existed in all measured sensory attributes and in 14 out of the 25 tested emotions across the six meals. Liking scores for all pastas with herbs and high salt pasta with no herbs were not significantly different for all tested attributes and fell between neither like nor dislike and like slightly on the 9-point hedonic scale. These samples were also associated with positive emotions related to energy and activation. Low-salt pastas with no herbs were consistently the least liked samples and evoked negative emotions. Results show that sodium content can be reduced by up to half when herbs are added to microwave-processed pasta meals without compromising liking. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Chicken pasta meals manufactured using microwave-assisted thermal sterilization technology are acceptable to community living individuals 60 years and older. Emotional responses to the meal are positive. When formulating these meals, herbs can be added to lower sodium content formulations to improve liking and increase the number of positive emotions associated with the meal. Microwave-assisted thermal sterilization, sodium reduction, emotional responses, consumer liking, older adults.

The Impact of Mood, Familiarity, Acceptability, Sensory Characteristics and Attitude on Consumers' Emotional Responses to Chocolates

Studies on emotions linked to sensory characteristics to understand consumers’ choice behaviour have grown in number rapidly. Internal consumer behaviour variables, namely mood, familiarity, acceptability, and attitude (MFAA), have been found to influence emotional response. The aim of this paper was to determine the impact of MFAA on consumers’ emotional responses towards chocolate as well as the effect of the sensory characteristics of chocolate on consumers’ emotional responses. Upon ethical approval, three chocolates were selected by a trained sensory panel based on 14 sensory attributes regarded relevant. Screened respondents (n = 149) completed an online survey based on the tasting of the chocolates by means of a home-use test (HUT). The questionnaire captured consumers’ mood (Quick mood scale), familiarity (QFFQ), acceptability (FACT), the sensory characteristics of the chocolate samples and emotional response (EsSense25 Profile), and lastly attitude (ACQ). Descriptive and inferential statistics were examined to answer the hypotheses of the study. The findings indicate that emotions are related to the bitter sensory attributes of chocolate and that this emotional response is influenced by MFAA variables, supporting the known fact that consumer behaviour is complex and multi-dimensional. Internal consumer behaviour variables play an important role in the emotions experienced during the consumption of chocolate. Investigating the relative importance of consumer behaviour components in sensory studies could allow for the design of food products such as chocolates based on a more “holistic” view of the consumer.

Sensory Drivers of Consumer Acceptance, Purchase Intent and Emotions toward Brewed Black Coffee

The link between coffee aroma/flavor and elicited emotions remains underexplored. This research identified key sensory characteristics of brewed black coffee that affected acceptance, purchase intent and emotions for Thai consumers. Eight Arabica coffee samples were evaluated by eight trained descriptive panelists for intensities of 26 sensory attributes and by 100 brewed black coffee users for acceptance, purchase intent and emotions. Results showed that the samples exhibited a wide range of sensory characteristics, and large differences were mainly described by the attributes coffee identity (coffee ID), roasted, bitter taste, balance/blended and fullness. Differences also existed among the samples for overall liking, purchase intent and most emotion terms. Partial least square regression analysis revealed that liking, purchase intent and positive emotions, such as active, alert, awake, energetic, enthusiastic, feel good, happy, jump start, impressed, pleased, refreshed and vigorous were driven by coffee ID, roasted, ashy, pipe tobacco, bitter taste, rubber, overall sweet, balanced/blended, fullness and longevity. Contrarily, sour aromatic, sour taste, fruity, woody, musty/earthy, musty/dusty and molasses decreased liking, purchase intent and positive emotions, and stimulated negative emotions, such as disappointed, grouchy and unfulfilled. This information could be useful for creating or modifying the sensory profile of brewed black coffee to increase consumer acceptance.

PREFERENSI KONSUMEN TERHADAP EMPAT VARIETAS UNGGUL MANGGA INDONESIA BERDASARKAN RESPON EMOSI

Understanding the consumer preferences and needs for new products is really important to support the acceptance and marketing success of a product. This study associated the preferences with emotional responses to various ready-to-eat and fresh food products. The objective was to obtain the preference based on emotional responses from different superior mango cultivars named agri gardina 45 (AG), gadung 21 (GD), red garifta (GM) and orange garifta (GO). The preference profile was measured by the 9-point hedonic scale, while the emotional response by EsSense25 combined with rating questionnaire and 5-point scale. This study involved 108 panelists. The finding showed that consumers liked gadung and orange garifta, while slighlty liked agri gardina and red garifta. Additionally, the EsSense25’s response showed that 4 out of 25 emotional terms were significantly different among the cultivars, namely happy, joyful, satisfied, and disgusted. However, fifteen attributes among the 25 emotion terms strongly correlated with liking, with the strongest terms on joyful, happy, satisfied, interested, secure, and free. These six emotions were associated with garifta orange, one of the newly released cultivars. The results suggested that garifta orange is potentially well-accepted and commercialized widely.

Psyllium (Plantago ovata Forsk) in frozen banana pulp: Influence on rheological, nutritional and sensory characteristics

A frozen banana pulp with functional properties was developed and characterized in this work. For this, 0 g, 3 g, 5 g and 7 g of psyllium in 100 g of banana pulp were added. The use of this fiber in industrialized products can contribute to the nutritional enrichment of the products and provide functional benefits already acknowledged, such as lowering LDL cholesterol, lowering blood glucose, increasing satiety and relieving constipation. According to the World Health Organization, vegetable consumption should be increased, as it reduces the risk of chronic diseases. The main purpose of this work was to incorporate psyllium in frozen banana pulp to develop a healthy product. The samples were evaluated through chemical analyses, rheological properties and sensory testing with Check-All-That-Apply questions (CATA). The addition of psyllium had a significant effect not only on the viscosity but also on the sensory and nutritional properties of the frozen banana pulp. This study indicated that the production of frozen banana pulp with psyllium is viable, as it has desirable nutritional and sensory characteristics which can contribute to the maintenance of health.

Neuroorganoleptics: Organoleptic Testing Based on Psychophysiological Sensing

There is an increasing interest, in consumer behaviour research related to food and beverage, in taking a step further from the traditional self-report questionnaires and organoleptic properties assessment. With the growing availability of psychophysiological data acquisition devices, and advancements in the study of the underlying signal sources seeking affective state assessment, the use of psychophysiological data analysis is a natural evolution in organoleptic testing. In this paper we propose a protocol for what can be defined as neuroorganoleptic analysis, a method that combines traditional approaches with psychophysiological data acquired during sensory testing. Our protocol was applied to a case study project named MobFood, where four samples of food were tested by a total of 83 participants, using preference and acceptance tasks, across three different sessions. Best practices and lessons learned regarding the laboratory setting and the acquisition of psychophysiological data were derived from this case study, which are herein described. Preliminary results show that certain Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features have a strong correlation with the preferences self-reported by the participants.

A Multisensor Data Fusion Approach for Predicting Consumer Acceptance of Food Products

Sensory experiences play an important role in consumer response, purchase decision, and fidelity towards food products. Consumer studies when launching new food products must incorporate physiological response assessment to be more precise and, thus, increase their chances of success in the market. This paper introduces a novel sensory analysis system that incorporates facial emotion recognition (FER), galvanic skin response (GSR), and cardiac pulse to determine consumer acceptance of food samples. Taste and smell experiments were conducted with 120 participants recording facial images, biometric signals, and reported liking when trying a set of pleasant and unpleasant flavors and odors. Data fusion and analysis by machine learning models allow predicting the acceptance elicited by the samples. Results confirm that FER alone is not sufficient to determine consumers' acceptance. However, when combined with GSR and, to a lesser extent, with pulse signals, acceptance prediction can be improved. This research targets predicting consumer's acceptance without the continuous use of liking scores. In addition, the findings of this work may be used to explore the relationships between facial expressions and physiological reactions for non-rational decision-making when interacting with new food products.

The State of Automated Facial Expression Analysis (AFEA) in Evaluating Consumer Packaged Beverages

In the late 1970s, analysis of facial expressions to unveil emotional states began to grow and flourish along with new technologies and software advances. Researchers have always been able to document what consumers do, but understanding how consumers feel at a specific moment in time is an important part of the product development puzzle. Because of this, biometric testing methods have been used in numerous studies, as researchers have worked to develop a more comprehensive understanding of consumers. Despite the many articles on automated facial expression analysis (AFEA), literature is limited in regard to food and beverage studies. There are no standards to guide researchers in setting up materials, processing data, or conducting a study, and there are few, if any, compilations of the studies that have been performed to determine whether any methodologies work better than others or what trends have been found. Through a systematic Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) review, 38 articles were found that were relevant to the research goals. The authors identified AFEA study methods that have worked and those that have not been as successful and noted any trends of particular importance. Key takeaways include a listing of commercial AFEA software, experimental methods used within the PRISMA analysis, and a comprehensive explanation of the critical methods and practices of the studies analyzed. Key information was analyzed and compared to determine effects on the study outcomes. Through analyzing the various studies, suggestions and guidance for conducting and analyzing data from AFEA experiments are discussed.

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.

An unfamiliar social presence reduces facial disgust responses to food stimuli

Consumers' emotional responses complement sensory and hedonic ratings in the prediction of food choice and consumption behaviour. The challenge with the measurement of consumption emotions is that emotions are highly context dependent. For emotion evaluations to bring greater insight to food research and development, it is essential that the influence of contextual variables on emotion are quantified. The present study contributes to the discussion with an investigation of the effect of an unfamiliar social presence on affective facial responses to visual food stimuli. Seventy participants (52 female and 18 male) viewed food images of varying acceptability either alone, or in the presence of the researcher. Subjective liking ratings were measured using a labelled affective magnitude scale, and facial muscle activity from zygomaticus major (contracted during smiling), corrugator supercilii (contracted during frowning) and levator labii superioris (contracted during nose wrinkling) were measured with an EMG recording system. Controlling for individual differences in facial expressivity and food image acceptability using linear mixed models, it was found that social context did not predict smiling or frowning muscle activity. Social context did predict the intensity of muscle activity indicative of a disgust response, with participants in the observed condition exhibiting less levator activity than participants in the alone condition. Regardless of social context, each muscle was found to have a relationship with subjective liking, with the direction of effects as expected. The results indicate that emotional stimuli and social context both influence food-evoked facial expression and provides support for the utility of facial EMG in measuring food-evoked emotion.

CROCUFID: A Cross-Cultural Food Image Database for Research on Food Elicited Affective Responses

We present CROCUFID: a CROss-CUltural Food Image Database that currently contains 840 images, including 479 food images with detailed metadata and 165 images of non-food items. The database includes images of sweet, savory, natural, and processed food from Western and Asian cuisines. To create sufficient variability in valence and arousal we included images of food with different degrees of appetitiveness (fresh, unfamiliar, molded or rotten, spoiled, and partly consumed). We used a standardized photographing protocol, resulting in high resolution images depicting all food items on a standard background (a white plate), seen from a fixed viewing (45°) angle. CROCUFID is freely available under the CC-By Attribution 4.0 International license and hosted on the OSF repository. The advantages of the CROCUFID database over other databases are its (1) free availability, (2) full coverage of the valence - arousal space, (3) use of standardized recording methods, (4) inclusion of multiple cuisines and unfamiliar foods, (5) availability of normative and demographic data, (6) high image quality and (7) capability to support future (e.g., virtual and augmented reality) applications. Individuals from the United Kingdom (N = 266), North-America (N = 275), and Japan (N = 264) provided normative ratings of valence, arousal, perceived healthiness, and desire-to-eat using visual analog scales (VAS). In addition, for each image we computed 17 characteristics that are known to influence affective observer responses (e.g., texture, regularity, complexity, and colorfulness). Significant differences between groups and significant correlations between image characteristics and normative ratings were in accordance with previous research, indicating the validity of CROCUFID. We expect that CROCUFID will facilitate comparability across studies and advance experimental research on the determinants of food-elicited emotions. We plan to extend CROCUFID in the future with images of food from a wide range of different cuisines and with non-food images (for applications in for instance neuro-physiological studies). We invite researchers from all parts of the world to contribute to this effort by creating similar image sets that can be linked to this collection, so that CROCUFID will grow into a truly multicultural food database.