Identification and applicability of emoji appropriate to describe food experiences in child-centred studies: A comparison between food names and images

Abstract

This study aimed to identify a group of emoji appropriate to describe food experiences in studies with schoolchildren and to evaluate their applicability expressing food-evoked emotions in terms of sample discrimination. The effect of liking, product category, and the nature of the food stimuli regarding emoji’s performance was also examined. To achieve these goals two studies were performed with a total of 249 schoolchildren aged from 6 to 12. As a result, 14 facial emoji were associated to seven varied evoked contexts. The study of their applicability showed that all emoji had individual discrimination ability when samples were evoked as food names, but not for food images. Positive emoji were frequently selected to represent the emotional response evoked by liked and very liked products, while neutral and negative emoji were associated to neutral and disliked products. The Correspondence Analysis (CA) suggested that the 14 emoji appropriate to describe food experiences were able to discriminate the emotion profiles elicited by samples from the same product category as well as samples with equivalent liking scores, but only when they evoked a different arousal response. This research expands the existing knowledge on children’s and preadolescent’s interpretation and uses of facial emoji in the food domain to a younger group (over the age of 6). It also provides relevant information about the influence of product-dependent variables on emoji’s applicability (i.e. product category, expected liking, and the food stimulus’ nature), which could be relevant to researchers interested in using emoji as a research tool.