Perceptual judgements of others' tasting experiences: are they enjoying their food?

Full Abstract

Motivated by previous work suggesting that infants make stereotypic facial reactions to different tastes, we assessed communicative signals that might enable an adult to interpret the strength, taste, and hedonic value of a liquid flavour another adult is consuming. Four subjects (tasters) were overtly videoed consuming drinks that varied in strength (low, medium, and high concentrations), taste (sweet, sour, bitter, and salty), and hedonic value (taster-rated enjoyment). 26 observers assessed the strength, taste, and taster's enjoyment of the drink from video clips of the tasters. Observers perceived the hedonic value of the drinks to the taster and the drinks' strength based on the tasters' reactions but were generally poor at assessing the specific taste of the drink. For all tastes except the bitter ones, observers might have based their judgements of taste on how much the taster appeared to enjoy the drink. These findings are discussed in terms of communication of food's value.

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Author information

Author/s: Burt, D Michael (DM); Payne, Keith R (KR); Perrett, David I (DI);

Affiliation: School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, UK. dmb(-atsign-)st-and.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Perceptual and motor skills (Percept Mot Skills), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Apr; vol 96 (issue 2) : pp 445-54

Dates: Created 2003/06/02; Completed 2003/09/30; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 12776827, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Adult
Female
Food
Humans
Judgment
Male

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