Wednesday, 17 August 2022
Meet the JournalistsPremiumAucklandWellingtonCanterbury/South Island
CrimePoliticsHealthEducationEnvironment and ClimateNZ Herald FocusData journalismKāhu, Māori ContentPropertyWeather
Small BusinessOpinionPersonal FinanceEconomyBusiness TravelCapital Markets
Politics
Premium SportRugbyCommonwealth GamesCricketRacingNetballBoxingLeagueFootballSuper RugbyAthleticsBasketballMotorsportTennisCyclingGolfAmerican SportsHockeyUFC
NZH Local FocusThe Northern AdvocateThe Northland AgeThe AucklanderWaikato HeraldBay of Plenty TimesHawke's Bay TodayRotorua Daily PostWhanganui ChronicleStratford PressManawatu GuardianKapiti NewsHorowhenua ChronicleTe Awamutu Courier
Covid-19
Te Rito
Te Rito
OneRoof PropertyCommercial Property
Open JusticeVideoPodcastsTechnologyWorldOpinion
SpyTVMoviesBooksMusicCultureSideswipeCompetitions
Fashion & BeautyFood & DrinkRoyalsRelationshipsWellbeingPets & AnimalsVivaCanvasEat WellCompetitionsRestaurants & Menus
New Zealand TravelAustralia TravelInternational Travel
Our Green FutureRuralOneRoof Property
Career AdviceCorporate News
Driven MotoringPhotos
SudokuCodecrackerCrosswordsWordsearchDaily quizzes
Classifieds
KaitaiaWhangareiDargavilleAucklandThamesTaurangaHamiltonWhakataneRotoruaTokoroaTe KuitiTaumarunuiTaupoGisborneNew PlymouthNapierHastingsDannevirkeWhanganuiPalmerston NorthLevinParaparaumuMastertonWellingtonMotuekaNelsonBlenheimWestportReeftonKaikouraGreymouthHokitikaChristchurchAshburtonTimaruWanakaOamaruQueenstownDunedinGoreInvercargill
NZ HeraldThe Northern AdvocateThe Northland AgeThe AucklanderWaikato HeraldBay Of Plenty TimesRotorua Daily PostHawke's Bay TodayWhanganui ChronicleThe Stratford PressManawatu GuardianKapiti NewsHorowhenua ChronicleTe Awamutu CourierVivaEat WellOneRoofDriven MotoringThe CountryPhoto SalesNZ Herald InsightsWatchMeGrabOneiHeart RadioRestaurant Hub

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.
Lifestyle

Colour: Inside the 'fourth dimension' of food

13 Feb, 2017 04:00 PM5 minutes to read
Kiwi researchers are exploring a "fourth dimension" of food: colour. Photo / 123RF

Kiwi researchers are exploring a "fourth dimension" of food: colour. Photo / 123RF

Jamie Morton
By
Jamie Morton

Science Reporter

VIEW PROFILE

Manufacturers and marketers have long stuck by three certain "dimensions" of food - taste, texture and smell.

But what if there was a fourth?

Researchers are exploring the intriguing possibility of such a factor - colour - which interacts with the other three, and applies not just to the food itself, but to the way it's advertised.

"People will talk about the taste, smell and flavour of food, but it's only if something looks unusual that they'll mention the colour," said Dr Gavin Northey, a marketing lecturer at the University of Auckland's Business School.

Evidence from his and others' research, strongly suggests that colour primes us to experience the other elements of flavour in certain ways.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

For example, people fed spoonfuls of red and blue custard with identical texture will rate the red custard as creamier and the blue custard as crunchier, or less creamy.

And people asked to smell white wine with red colouring tend to rate it as if it were a red wine - even some professional wine tasters are caught out.

Northey and his fellow researchers wondered if colour influenced not only how we experience or perceive food, but what we expect it to taste, smell and feel like even before putting it in our mouths.

So, they designed an ingenious series of studies to investigate colour's "cross-modal" effect on the expected texture of food.

In the first study, participants were shown three ads with an image of mocked-up foods - a creamy-looking salad, a crunchy-looking biscuit, and a "neutral textured" quiche-like food, neither particularly creamy nor crunchy.

Half saw the ads with a red filter over them, half with a blue filter.

Related articles

Lifestyle

What are the white lines in raw chicken?

10 Feb 12:00 AM
Lifestyle

Why working out isn't all about losing weight

12 Feb 03:45 AM
Lifestyle

The most common weight loss mistakes

13 Feb 02:00 AM

Those who saw the blue filter were more likely to expect crunchiness in all foods.

In the second study, text indicating either creaminess or crunchiness was added to the red and blue ads.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.
One of the images used in the studies. Photo / Supplied
One of the images used in the studies. Photo / Supplied

When people saw ads with "crunchy" labels, the cross-modal effect of colour on expected texture was evident.

When ads with "creamy" labels were shown, the labels inhibited the cross-modal effect of colour.

"It seems that the concept of creaminess and the consumption of creamy foods is such a powerful, hedonic personal experience that it can interrupt automatic sensory-level perception," Northey said.

The third study teased out this interaction between a food ad's wording and colour.

It repeated the second study but added a measure of sensory sensitivity, called the "Need For Touch" (NFT) scale.

People with high NFT, as the name suggests, feel compelled to touch objects - they pick up and handle fruit at the grocers, for example.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

As the researchers predicted, colour influenced expected texture differently according to people's "need for touch".

Depending on a person's predisposition for touching objects (their NFT), they responded to colour cues very differently.

High NFTs saw foods in red ads as being creamier than foods in blue ads; by contrast, low NFTs perceive red foods as being less creamy.

"We had thought that those who have low sensory sensitivity, as measured by need for touch, would attend to the ad copy and discount the colour - given that language often overrides the innate influence of colour on food texture," Northey said.

"But, these results suggest people at each end of the sensory spectrum, rather than being more or less sensitive to sensory stimuli, actually experience very different things.

"This is really interesting, as other studies have shown that about a quarter of the population have low sensory sensitivity."

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

The fourth study found that expected creaminess - but not crunchiness - strongly influences expectations of pleasure, quality, likeability, and intent to purchase in people with low sensory sensitivity.

Dr Gavin Northey. Photo / Supplied
Dr Gavin Northey. Photo / Supplied

This was in line with previous research Northey conducted with a team from Australia, which found creaminess was central to evaluations of pleasure and purchase intent following consumption.

Evidence of crossing-over between the senses has led researchers to rethink the phenomenon known as synaesthesia, where a stimulus in one sensory mode causes an experience in another mode - for example, on hearing a musical note they see a certain colour, or on hearing a word they experience a taste.

"It was once thought that only one in 25,000 people have synaesthesia, but over the last decade that estimate has been revised to one in 20," Northey said.

"Brain scan studies have revealed neural pathways that enable different senses to 'talk' to each other.

"The thinking now is that synaesthesia actually lies on a spectrum.

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

"Rather than synaesthetes being the only ones to have a special, direct pathway between the senses, they have a heightened experience of pathways common to us all."

In future studies, he hoped to untangle the influence of colour on expected smell and taste - and how that interacted with people's sensory sensitivity, and check whether the colour of food packaging has similar effects to the colour of ads.

The upshot for advertisers from the expected texture studies: "Know the textural cues of colour, and make sure the palette and words you use both line up with the texture you're trying to convey."

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

World

New Scottish law makes period products free for all

17 Aug 04:04 AM
Lifestyle

'Mind-blowing' reasons men refuse to wear condoms

17 Aug 03:47 AM
Lifestyle

Kiwi dubbed 'world's hottest gran' claims she dated Shane Warne before he died

17 Aug 12:25 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

'We're over 50 and having the best sex of our lives'

17 Aug 12:00 AM
Lifestyle

A red lentil and cauliflower dhal recipe you'll crave all year

17 Aug 12:00 AM

Most Popular

Premium
NZ's highest paid CEO: Fletcher boss takes home $6.58m
Business

NZ's highest paid CEO: Fletcher boss takes home $6.58m

17 Aug 05:30 AM
Adrian Orr fronts media after RBNZ hikes OCR by 50bp
Business

Adrian Orr fronts media after RBNZ hikes OCR by 50bp

17 Aug 02:00 AM
'Incredibly unsettling': Police update on suitcase homicide mystery
New Zealand|CrimeUpdated

'Incredibly unsettling': Police update on suitcase homicide mystery

17 Aug 01:32 AM

Advertisement

Advertise with NZME.
About NZMEHelp & SupportContact UsSubscribe to NZ HeraldHouse Rules
Manage Your Print SubscriptionNZ Herald E-EditionAdvertise with NZMEBook Your AdPrivacy Policy
Terms of UseCompetition Terms & ConditionsSubscriptions Terms & Conditions
© Copyright 2022 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP