Shape Symbolism of Taste

What it is

The review reports that people link tastes such as bitterness, sweetness and sourness, along with qualities such as carbonation and texture, to shapes that run from rounded to spiky. Sweet items are matched with rounded forms such as circles, and bitter or carbonated items with angular forms such as triangles and stars.

The authors propose that these links are already used in food labels and packaging, where they may set up particular sensory expectations in consumers. They add that people tend to prefer products that meet their expectations, so that deliberate use of the links could give a company an advantage. The paper reviews recent research and industry examples and discusses the explanations that have been proposed for the pairings.

In effect

The review summarises evidence that the shape of a product's packaging can affect both how consumers perceive the product's sensory qualities and how much they like it, even when the product itself stays the same.

The Food Branding Psychology article places this at the first stage of a food's path, the shelf. A rounded pack and an angular pack make different promises about taste before a word on the label is read, and the food then has to keep the promise. A 2014 cross-cultural study led by Xiaoang Irene Wan found that some colour and shape matches with tastes were shared across four groups of participants while the overall patterns differed considerably between countries.

What it does not say

The concept does not say that a rounded pack makes a product taste sweeter or that an angular one makes it taste bitter in every setting. The review describes associations and proposes that they are used, and it summarises evidence that pack shape can affect perception and liking. It does not give a rule that holds across markets, and the 2014 study of four countries found considerable differences between them.

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