The shapes associated with the concept of ‘sweet and sour’ foods

Abstract

Research on taste-shape correspondences has focused on one-to-one taste/shape matching tasks. However, foods and drinks tend to involve multiple shapes (or shape attributes) and tastes that co-occur at different moments of our eating experiences. In the present research, we assessed whether food concepts involving more than one taste (e.g., “sweet and sour”) would be associated with pairs of round and/or angular shapes. The participants matched pairs comprising angular and round shapes with “sweet and sour” food concepts more often than with other single taste and taste combination concepts, in a manner that is broadly consistent with studies involving one-to-one taste/shape matches. These results were observed both when the participants were presented with the shape pairs alone (Experiment 1) or along with a product’s packaging (Experiment 2). We conclude by presenting possible explanations for the results obtained, as well as directions for future research.