Feels yummy!

Have you ever thought about what yummy feels like? Is there such thing as just the right amount of softness of firmness in food? The answers is a scrumptious yes. The tongue is not only for tasting delicacies. It also serves as our sense of touch in tasting food. (Hadhazy, 2011) Simple demo? What do you prefer, a chunky or smooth peanut butter? Or how about that crunchy and breaking sensation you feel in you mouth when you eat chips?

But we already know that we feel with our tongue, either from our past food blog entries or simply by our experiences. If you still don't trust me, there is a specific brain region, somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe for the tongue itself. This part where the human body is represented ina small area for the brain is called the homonculus. Not the mouth, the tongue. (Goldstein, 2010) So let's explore if our perception of food can be affected by the things we touch with our bare hands. Every year, consumer research like those of Starbucks and other fast food chains spend enormous amount of money on disposable packaging. However, does packaging affect our food experience? In 2008, Aradhna and Morrin discovered that "flimsy" packaging may indeed have a negative effect on consumers. In their research, they sorted individuals into "strong autotelics" (people who like to touch products before buying them) vs. "low autotelics" (people who are not so touchy when buying things). This pretest was done since there is individual differences in touch sensitivity. Participants were asked to evaluate the cups and results showed that, low autotelics are highly affected by the packaging. They gave the most negative response to the taste of water in a flimsy cup as compared to strong autotelics. SAY WHAT? Isn't it more logical that those who like touching things (strong autotelics) be more sensitive and more particular to packaging? Shouldn't they be more affected with those "flimsy cups"?

"High (vs. low) autotelics receive more pleasure from touching objects, tend to touch them more, and are more consciously aware of the potential effect of haptic clues on product judgment. As a result, they are more capable of adjusting for such clues in their product judgments when they are nondiagnostic in nature." - Aradhna and Morrin, 2008.

Simply put, strong autotelics adjust more easily than low autotelics. Makes sense? Remember, the concept of experience dependent plasticity? The more you are stimulated by a stimulus the more adept you become. This may explain why strong autotelics have high adaptation to the flimsy cups and thus the results of the study. But going back to food perception, the study showed that packaging do affect our food experience. The way we feel with our tongue also extends to the way we feel with our hands. Thus, there is such a thing as the feeling of yummy! This is linked to the multi-perception of food! We don't just depend on our gustatory sense if something is delicious, we are affected by our olfactory, audio (past blog article entry by me), visual and even somatosensory stimuli. 

References:

Aradhna Krishna and Maureen Morrin, "Does Touch Affect Taste? The Perceptual Transfer of Product Container Haptic Cues." Journal of Consumer Research: April 2008.

Goldstein, E. B. (2010). Sensation and Perception. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Hadhazy, A. (2011, December 30). Tip of the Tongue: Humans May Taste at Least 6 Flavors. Retrieved September 22, 2013, from Live Science: http://www.livescience.com/17684-sixth-basic-taste.html

University of Chicago Press Journals (2008, March 18). Does Touch Affect Flavor? Study Finds That How A Container Feels Can Affect Taste. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 23, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2008/03/080317095610.htm 

Images used:

Picture 1: http://i.imgur.com/DcDM9.jpg

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