Assessing the shape symbolism of the taste, flavour, and texture of foods and beverages

By Charles Spence, Mary K. Ngo. Flavour, 2012

113 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Consumers reliably match a variety of tastes (bitterness, sweetness, and sourness), oral-somatosensory attributes (carbonation, oral texture, and mouth-feel), and flavours to abstract shapes varying in their angularity. For example, they typically match more rounded forms such as circles with sweet tastes and more angular shapes such as triangles and stars with bitter and/or carbonated foods and beverages. Here, we suggest that such shape symbolic associations could be, and in some cases already are being, incorporated into the labelling and/or packaging of food and beverage products in order to subconsciously set up specific sensory expectations in the minds of consumers. Given that consumers normally prefer those food and beverage products that meet their sensory expectations, as compared to those that give rise to a ‘disconfirmation of expectation’, we believe that the targeted use of such shape symbolism may provide a means for companies to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Here, we review the latest research documenting a variety of examples of shape symbolism in the food and beverage sector. We also highlight a number of the explanations for such effects that have been put forward over the years. Finally, we summarise the latest evidence demonstrating that the shapes a consumer sees on the label and even the shape of the packaging in which the product is served can all impact on a consumer’s sensory-discriminative and hedonic responses to food and beverage products.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/613aca78d0cf4b4e174a75ef71afd34184f07ce7

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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Sensory Systems

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Plate shape and colour interact to influence taste and quality judgments (2013, background): “Specific contextual variables include, but are not limited to, background music [22]; the size, weight, and composition of cutlery [23]; a product’s packaging [24]; colour lighting [25]; and menu item naming [26].”
Hedonic mediation of the crossmodal correspondence between taste and shape (2015, background): “1) that have previously been used in various research on crossmodal correspondences between tastes and shapes (e.g., Spence & Deroy, 2013; Spence & Ngo, 2012, for reviews).”
"Bouba" and "Kiki" in Namibia? A remote culture make similar shape-sound matches, but different shape-taste matches to Westerners. (2013, background): “For instance, San Pellegrino sparkling water has been sold in bottles with many prominent angular stars for more than a century (see Spence & Gallace, 2011; Spence & Ngo, 2012).”