Charles Spence
Experimental psychologist at Oxford whose laboratory established that the colour of a container changes what people report about the food inside it.
Who they are
Spence runs the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford and has spent a career on how the senses act on one another, particularly in eating and drinking. His review of food colour is the standard reference for the claim that colour is the strongest single cue for setting taste expectations.
He is also, usefully, the source of most of the qualifications that get stripped out when his work is quoted commercially.
Key papers
Spence, C. (2011). Crossmodal correspondences: A tutorial review. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics.
Spence, C. (2015). On the psychological impact of food colour. Flavour, 4, 21.
Co-author on the mug, cutlery and restaurant plate studies.
Key ideas
Colour is the single most important product-intrinsic cue for setting expectations about taste and flavour.
Where colour and taste do not match, the result is a negatively valenced disconfirmation of expectation, and a good product is rated worse than it deserves.
The effect varies by age group, by culture, and by taster status, which is partly genetic. None of that is compatible with a universal palette.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.3758/s13414-010-0073-7
- doi:10.1186/s13411-015-0031-3