Abstract
Food is evaluated for various attributes. One of the key food evaluation domains is hedonicity. As food is consumed, its hedonic valence decreases (due to prolonged sensory stimulation) and hedonic habituation results. The aim of the present study was to investigate changes in food pleasantness ratings during consumption of a simple food by individuals without olfactory experience with food as compared to normosmics. 15 congenital anosmics and 15 normosmic controls were each presented with ten 10 g banana slices. Each was visually inspected, then smelled and chewed for ten seconds and subsequently rated for hedonicity on a 21-point scale. There was a significant difference in pleasantness ratings between congenital anosmics and controls (F(1, 26) = 6.71, p = .02) with the anosmics exhibiting higher ratings than the controls, a significant main repeated-measures effect on the ratings (F(1.85, 48) = 12.15, p<.001), which showed a decreasing trend over the course of consumption, as well as a significant portion*group interaction (F(1.85, 48) = 3.54, p = .04), with the anosmic participants experiencing a less pronounced decline. The results of the present explorative study suggest that over the course of consumption of a simple food, congenitally anosmic individuals experience differential patterns of appreciation of food as compared to normosmics. In this particular case, the decrease of hedonic valence was less pronounced in congenital anosmics.
Highlights
Food is evaluated for various attributes through several sensory modalities
It is thought that foods acquire hedonic valence mainly through various learning processes; a unique set of food likes and dislikes is formed over the life course based on the individual’s experiences and socially held beliefs
The recruitment of congenitally anosmic participants was carried out while another study was being conducted at the research centre
Summary
Food is evaluated for various attributes through several sensory modalities. When the food is delivered to the mouth, but prior to ingestion, it is assessed on the basis of a multimodal sensory integration of retronasal olfaction, taste, and somatosensory input such as mechano-sensation, temperature or irritation [5]. One of the key domains of food evaluation is hedonicity. One of the key guides in this process is food flavour, and the most widely cited learning models are those based on flavour-based learning, namely those proposing associations between a novel flavour and an existing liked or disliked flavour, or post-ingestive consequences, ingestion of nutrients in particular (for review, see [6])
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