Carvalho Felipe Reinoso, Moors Pieter, Wagemans Johan, Spence Charles
Department of Marketing, School of Management, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
Brain and Cognition, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2017 Dec 19;8:2205. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02205. eCollection 2017.
Visual appearance (e.g., color) cues set expectations regarding the likely taste and flavor properties of food and drink. These expectations may, in turn, anchor the subsequent tasting experience. In the present study, we examined the influence of the color of a beer on the consumer's experience. Dark and pale beers were evaluated both before and after tasting. Importantly, these beers were indistinguishable in terms of their taste/flavor when tasted without any visual cues. The results indicate that the differing visual appearance of the beers led to clear differences in expected taste/flavor. However, after tasting, no differences in flavor ratings were observed, indicating that the expectations based on visual cues did not influence the actual tasting experience. The participants also expected the dark beer to be more expensive than the pale one. These outcomes suggest that changes in the visual appearance of a beer lead to significant changes in the way in which consumers expect the beer to taste. At the same time, however, our findings also suggest the need for more evidence to be collected in order to determine the boundary conditions on when such crossmodal expectations may vs. may not affect the tasting experience. The expected flavor of a beer is affected by its visual appearance. No differences in flavor ratings were observed on tasting. Consumers expect dark beers to be more expensive than pale/amber beers.
视觉外观（如颜色）线索会设定人们对食物和饮料可能具有的味道和风味特征的预期。这些预期反过来可能会影响随后的品尝体验。在本研究中，我们考察了啤酒颜色对消费者体验的影响。在品尝前后分别对深色啤酒和浅色啤酒进行了评估。重要的是，当在没有任何视觉线索的情况下品尝时，这些啤酒在味道/风味方面难以区分。结果表明，啤酒不同的视觉外观导致了预期味道/风味上的明显差异。然而，品尝后，风味评分没有差异，这表明基于视觉线索的预期并未影响实际的品尝体验。参与者还预期深色啤酒比浅色啤酒更贵。这些结果表明，啤酒视觉外观的变化会导致消费者对啤酒味道预期方式的显著变化。然而，与此同时，我们的研究结果也表明，需要收集更多证据来确定这种跨模态预期何时可能以及何时不会影响品尝体验的边界条件。啤酒的预期风味受其视觉外观影响。品尝时风味评分没有差异。消费者预期深色啤酒比浅色/琥珀色啤酒更贵。
