Food perception and emotion measured over time in-lab and in-home

International audienceBackground: Real-life human eating behaviour does not take place in a vacuum, rather it happens in context. The context in which consumers eat their foods influences the acceptance of the consumed foods. Consequently, consumers' hedonic and sensory ratings elicited in a natural consumption context will differ from those elicited under controlled sensory laboratory conditions. Moreover, foods are rarely consumed on one single occasion but are typically consumed repeatedly and ratings may change over repeated consumptions as well. Often, consumer acceptance is tested explicitly, for example with liking ratings, especially when the testing is done outside the laboratory. Implicit tests such as facial expressions and physiological measurements of the autonomic nervous system can provide additional information on consumer acceptance. As a result of technological advantages, such tests are no longer limited to the laboratory but can also be used in natural consumption contexts. Method: Eighteen healthy Dutch consumers (18–65 years of age) tested four test foods plus a warm-up sample ten times on consecutive weekdays and on similar hours using their own laptop and webcam. Test locations alternated between the sensory laboratory and the participant's own home. Explicit measures included liking scores and scores on ten sensory taste/flavour/texture attributes, and implicit measures included facial expressions, heart rate and consumption duration using Face ReaderTM. This study was the first to validate the Face ReaderTM for usage at home. Results: The liking scores and sensory profiles varied between test foods (p < 0.05), but not between test locations and only some specific sensory attributes showed systematic variation over repeated consumption. In contrast, implicit measures showed systematic effects of test foods, test locations, and repeated consumptions (p < 0.05). Compared to consumption in the laboratory, consumption at home was faster, triggered higher heart rates, and triggered more intense facial expressions of happiness, contempt, disgust and boredom. Conclusions: Implicit tests were more sensitive to effects of test location and repeated consumption than explicit tests. Additional research is required to investigate the relevance of these measures to long term consumer acceptance of food products