Direct mapping of affective pictures and taste words

Spice up the moment: The influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time

Embodied cognition contends that sensorimotor experiences undergird cognitive processes. Three embodied cross-domain metaphorical mappings constitute quintessential illustrations: spatial navigation and orientation underpin the conceptualization of time and emotion and gustatory sensation underlies the formulation of emotion. Threading together these strands of insights, the present research consisted of three studies explored the potential influence of spicy taste on people's metaphorical perspectives on time. The results revealed a positive correlation between spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor for time such that individuals who enjoyed spicy taste (Study 1) and who consumed spicy (vs. salty) snack (Study 2) exhibited a predilection for the ego-moving perspective when cognizing a temporally ambiguous event. Because both spicy taste and the ego-moving metaphor are associated with anger and approach motivation, the latter two were postulated to be related to the novel taste-time relationship. Corroborative evidence for the hypothesis was found, which indicated that spicy (vs. salty) intake elicited significantly stronger anger toward and significantly greater approach-motivated perception of a rescheduled temporal event (Study 3). Taken together, the current findings demonstrate that spicy taste may play a role in people's perspectives on the movement of events in time and highlight the involved embodied interrelation between language, emotion, and cognition.

The effects of anxiety on taste perception: The role of awareness

Prior research indicate that emotional states can alter taste perception, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study explores whether taste perception changes due to the mere evocation of emotions or the cognitive awareness of emotions. The first experiment investigated how anxiety affects taste perception when individuals are aware of their anxiety. Participants watched videos inducing relaxation or anxiety, then were divided into groups focusing on their emotions and those who did not, and the taste perception was measure. The second experiment investigated the influence of awareness directed toward emotions on taste evaluation, without manipulating emotional states. This focused on cognitive processing of taste through evaluations of visual stimuli. Results showed that sweetness perception is suppressed by the evocation of anxiety, whereas bitterness perception is enhanced only by anxiety with awareness. These findings indicate that the mechanisms by which emotional states affect taste perception may differ depending on taste quality.

Development and validation of a highly dynamic and reusable picture-based scale: A new affective measurement tool

Emotion measurement is crucial to conducting emotion research. Numerous studies have extensively employed textual scales for psychological and organizational behavior research. However, emotions are transient states of organisms with relatively short duration, some insurmountable limitations of textual scales have been reported, including low reliability for single measurement or susceptibility to learning effects for multiple repeated use. In the present article, we introduce the Highly Dynamic and Reusable Picture-based Scale (HDRPS), which was randomly generated based on 3,386 realistic, high-quality photographs that are divided into five categories (people, animals, plants, objects, and scenes). Affective ratings of the photographs were gathered from 14 experts and 209 professional judges. The HDRPS was validated using the Self-Assessment Manikin and the PANAS by 751 participants. With an accuracy of 89.73%, this new tool allows researchers to measure individual emotions continuously for their research. The non-commercial use of the HDRPS system can be freely accessible by request at http://syy.imagesoft.cc:8989/Pictures.7z. HDRPS is used for non-commercial academic research only. As some of the images are collected through the open network, it is difficult to trace the source, so please contact the author if there are any copyright issues.

Why Taste Is Pharmacology

The chapter presents an argument supporting the view that taste, defined as the receptor-mediated signaling of taste cells and consequent sensory events, is proper subject matter for the field of pharmacology. The argument develops through a consideration of how the field of pharmacology itself is to be defined. Though its application toward the discovery and development of therapeutics is of obvious value, pharmacology nevertheless is a basic science committed to examining biological phenomena controlled by the selective interactions between chemicals - regardless of their sources or uses - and receptors. The basic science of pharmacology is founded on the theory of receptor occupancy, detailed here in the context of taste. The discussion then will turn to consideration of the measurement of human taste and how well the results agree with the predictions of receptor theory.

Augmented reality flavor: cross-modal mapping across gustation, olfaction, and vision

Gustatory display research is still in its infancy despite being one of the essential everyday senses that human practice while eating and drinking. Indeed, the most important and frequent tasks that our brain deals with every day are foraging and feeding. The recent studies by psychologists and cognitive neuroscientist revealed how complex multisensory rely on the integration of cues from all the human senses in any flavor experiences. The perception of flavor is multisensory and involves combinations of gustatory and olfactory stimuli. The cross-modal mapping between these modalities needs to be more explored in the virtual environment and simulation, especially in liquid food. In this paper, we present a customized wearable Augmented Reality (AR) system and olfaction display to study the effect of vision and olfaction on the gustatory sense. A user experiment and extensive analysis conducted to study the influence of each stimulus on the overall flavor, including other factors like age, previous experience in Virtual Reality (VR)/AR, and beverage consumption. The result showed that smell contributes strongly to the flavor with less contribution to the vision. However, the combination of these stimuli can deliver richer experience and a higher belief rate. Beverage consumption had a significant effect on the flavor belief rate. Experience is correlated with stimulus and age is correlated with belief rate, and both indirectly affected the belief rate.