No abstract

Ongoing research has shown that emoji can be used by children to discriminate food products, but it is unclear if they express emotions and how they are linked to emotional words. Little is known about how children interpret emoji in terms of their emotional meaning in the context of food. This study aimed at investigating the emotional meaning of emoji used to describe food experiences in 9–13-year-old pre-adolescents and to measure related age and gender differences. The meaning of 46 emoji used to describe food experience was explored by: mapping emoji according to similarities and differences in their emotional meaning using the projective mapping technique, and linking emoji with emotion words using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) format. The two tasks gave consistent results and showed that emoji were discriminated along the valence (positive vs. negative) and power (dominant vs. submissive) dimension, and to a lower extent along the arousal dimension (high vs. low activation). In general, negative emoji had more distinct meanings than positive emoji in both studies, but differences in nuances of meaning were found also among positive emoji. Girls and older pre-adolescents (12–13 years old (y.o.)) discriminated positive emoji slightly better than boys and younger pre-adolescents (9–11 y.o.). This suggests that girls and older pre-adolescents may be higher in emotional granularity (the ability to experience and discriminate emotions), particularly of positive emotions. The results of the present work can be used for the development of an emoji-based tool to measure emotions elicited by foods in pre-adolescents.

Children’s eating behavior does not necessarily align with dietary recommendations, and there is a need for better understanding the factors underlying their food choices. The aim of this study was to investigate children’s self-reported reasons for accepting and rejecting foods. A questionnaire was developed with reasons based on prior research and in-depth interviews. A set of various food stimuli covering different types was evaluated by 106 girls and 99 boys aged 10–13 years by checking all reasons that apply (CATA) for either accepting or rejecting them. Results showed gender differences among reasons for both food acceptance and rejection, but also in liking and willingness to re-taste the stimuli. The most common reason for food acceptance was good taste in boys and curiosity in girls; for food rejection they were bad taste, bad smell and dislike of appearance in boys and bad taste, bad smell, dislike of appearance and texture in girls. Overall, boys liked the food stimuli more than girls and were more willing to re-taste them. Future research should focus more on the role of sensory properties in both acceptance and rejection, and the potential of children’s curiosity as a driver in tasting foods should be further explored.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between taste responsiveness and food liking in preadolescents. Model food samples of grapefruit juice (GF) and vegetable broth (VB) modified with four additions of sucrose and sodium chloride, respectively, were employed. Intensity perception for sweetness, sourness, and bitterness were measured in GF while saltiness and umami were measured in VB. The children (N = 148) also completed food choice, familiarity, stated liking and neophobia questionnaires. The test was conducted at school, with instructions provided remotely via video call. Four segments were defined differing in basic taste responsiveness. Segments and sucrose concentrations significantly affected liking for GF, while no significant effect of segments and sodium chloride concentrations occurred on liking for VB. An increasing sucrose concentration was positively associated with liking for GF only in the segment with low responsiveness to bitter and sour tastes. No significant differences across segments were found for food choice, familiarity, stated liking, and neophobia. Conclusively, relationships between taste responsiveness and liking are product and basic taste-dependent in addition to being subject-dependent. Strategies to improve acceptance by using sucrose as a suppressor for warning sensations of bitterness and sourness can be more or less effective depending on individual responsiveness to the basic tastes.