Sensory Expectation

Sensory Expectation

Reviewed by Faisal Zaidi

Sensory expectation is what a person anticipates a food will taste like before the first bite, formed from cues such as shape, plating and colour. The Why We Project uses the term for the group of studies in the Food Branding Psychology article, and for a 2015 review by Betina Piqueras-Fiszman and Charles Spence on expectations built from cues that sit outside the food itself.

What it is

A food reaches the eater with a good deal already said about it: the shape of its pack, the arrangement on its plate, the colour of its surroundings and the words around it. These cues are not part of the food, and the review by Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence is titled for sensory expectations based on such product-extrinsic cues, covering the empirical evidence and the theoretical accounts. This page uses the review as a pointer to that literature and attributes no particular finding to it.

The concept is a bridge between the cue and the judgement. The cue is seen first, the expectation forms, and the tasting is then read against it.

In effect

A 2014 study in Flavour by Charles Michel and colleagues recorded expectation and judgement in order. A salad was served in one of three presentations, and before tasting the painting-style plate was seen as more artistic and complex, was liked more and was valued more. After eating, it also received higher tastiness ratings.

A 2007 paper by JoAndrea Hoegg and Joseph Alba studied a related question, how well people tell tastes apart. Across three experiments, common visual and verbal cues produced consistent distortions in taste discrimination, and cues affected discrimination differently from preference. In the 2012 review of shape symbolism, Charles Spence and Mary Kim Ngo note that people tend to prefer products that meet their expectations.

What it does not say

The concept does not say that an expectation fixes the taste, and it does not describe how much any cue changes sales. The studies above measured ratings, discrimination and associations in experiments, and the cross-cultural matching study used pictures and not a tasting. The 2015 review is cited here by title only.

Sources

  1. Piqueras-Fiszman, B., & Spence, C. (2015). Sensory expectations based on product-extrinsic food cues: An interdisciplinary review of the empirical evidence and theoretical accounts. Food Quality and Preference, 40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2014.09.013
  2. Michel, C., Velasco, C., Gatti, E., & Spence, C. (2014). A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience. Flavour, 3, 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/2044-7248-3-7
  3. Hoegg, J., & Alba, J. W. (2007). Taste perception: More than meets the tongue. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(4). https://doi.org/10.1086/510222
  4. Spence, C., & Ngo, M. K. (2012). Assessing the shape symbolism of the taste, flavour, and texture of foods and beverages. Flavour, 1, 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/2044-7248-1-12