Levitan Carmel A, Zampini Massimiliano, Li Ryan, Spence Charles
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, United Kingdom.
Chem Senses. 2008 Jun;33(5):415-23. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjn008. Epub 2008 Feb 28.
We report 2 experiments designed to investigate the effect of people's prior beliefs concerning specific color-flavor associations on their ability to discriminate the flavor of colored sugar-coated chocolate sweets. The participants in our study judged whether pairs of Smarties had the same flavor or not. In our first experiment, the participants either performed the task with their eyes open or else while wearing a blindfold to eliminate any visual cues. We used pairs of Smarties that either did or did not differ in flavor. In making a sighted comparison between red and green Smarties, the participants were more likely to judge them as tasting the same if they believed all non-orange Smarties to be identical in flavor and as different in flavor if they did not hold such a belief. The ability of our participants to discriminate orange Smarties from the red and green Smarties was unaffected by their prior belief that orange Smarties taste different. In a second experiment, participants' ratings of their certainty of there being a difference in flavor between a red and an orange Smartie that either tasted the same or different were affected by their prior beliefs-those participants who expected a difference were more likely to report a difference than those without any such prior expectation. Taken together, these results demonstrate that people's expectations concerning color-flavor associations can modulate their flavor discrimination responses, even for a familiar food product such as Smarties.
我们报告了两项实验，旨在研究人们关于特定颜色-味道关联的先验信念对其辨别彩色糖衣巧克力糖果味道能力的影响。我们研究中的参与者判断一对聪明豆糖果的味道是否相同。在我们的第一个实验中，参与者要么睁着眼睛完成任务，要么戴着眼罩以消除任何视觉线索。我们使用了味道有差异或无差异的聪明豆糖果对。在对红色和绿色聪明豆进行有视觉的比较时，如果参与者认为所有非橙色的聪明豆味道相同，那么他们更有可能判断它们味道一样；如果他们不持有这种信念，则更有可能判断它们味道不同。我们的参与者区分橙色聪明豆与红色和绿色聪明豆的能力不受他们橙色聪明豆味道不同这一先验信念的影响。在第二个实验中，参与者对味道相同或不同的红色和橙色聪明豆之间味道有差异的确定性评分受到他们先验信念的影响——那些预期有差异的参与者比没有这种先验预期的参与者更有可能报告有差异。综合来看，这些结果表明，即使对于像聪明豆这样的熟悉食品，人们对颜色-味道关联的预期也会调节他们的味道辨别反应。
