Constructing healthy food names: On the sound symbolism of healthy food

Motoki, Kosuke; Park, Jae-Woo; Pathak, Abhishek; Spence, Charles

doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2020.104157

Cited by 38 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 104 publications

(120 reference statements)

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“…Thirdly, our findings do not explore the association of odors with individual phonemes (e.g., /i/, /o/). A growing body of evidence suggests that people tend to match individual phonemes with certain food‐related attributes (Motoki et al, 2021; Motoki, Saito, Park, et al, 2020b; Pathak et al, 2020, 2021; Yorkston & Menon, 2004). Relevant to the current study, one recent study has shown the link between odors and speech sounds (unpleasant odors and [ x / χ ], [ f ]) (Speed, Atkinson, Wnuk, & Majid, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the extensive literature available in this field, the link between olfaction and speech sounds has been inadequately explored. Since speech sounds have a significant role in describing and communicating meanings (Motoki, Park, Pathak, & Spence, 2021; Park, Motoki, Pathak, & Spence, 2020; Sidhu & Pexman, 2018) and have been revealed to interact with the crossmodal judgments of other sensory modalities (e.g., taste, shapes) (Pathak et al, 2020), this study aimed to investigate how odors are associated with the speech sounds.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smelling speech sounds: Association of odors with texture‐related ideophones

Uchida

Pathak

Motoki

2021

Journal of Sensory Studies

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Odors are often difficult to describe verbally, and little is known about the association of odors with the words that describe them. Following the literature on crossmodal correspondences between odors and sounds/haptics, this study aimed to reveal how odors are associated with the words describing textures and haptics in the Japanese language. Fifty participants smelled 17 food-related odors (e.g., lemon, pepper) and matched the odors with words related to texture (e.g., sakusaku), haptics (e.g., soft, dry), and emotion (e.g., positive). The experiment was conducted with and without the verbal description of odor names. The results demonstrated that each odor was mainly categorized into words related to the concepts of (a) juicy/cool/jiggly/positive, (b) smooth/moist/soft, or (c) hard/rough/dry, regardless of whether participants smelled the odors with or without the verbal description. Our findings reveal novel odor-sound/haptic associations and demonstrate how odors can be described verbally. Practical applicationsPeople find it difficult to verbalize or communicate various odors. This study contributes to the literature on odor-sound/haptic correspondences by showing that the odors are associated with texture-related ideophones and haptic words. Specifically, the results demonstrated that each odor was mainly categorized into words related to the concepts of (a) juicy/cool/jiggly/positive, (b) smooth/moist/soft, or (c) hard/ rough/dry. These findings are relevant to marketing communications involving odors and emphasize the potential importance of the texture-related ideophones and haptic words when marketers want to effectively communicate odors with consumers. | INTRODUCTIONIt is well-known that humans explore the world with all sense organs, yet some senses (e.g., vision) and words related to them dominate our languages (San Roque et al., 2015;Winter, Perlman, & Majid, 2018). For example, in the English language there are words describing different shapes (e.g., triangle, sphere), colors, and hues, but very few describe different smells. Although humans' sense of olfaction is well-developed, our linguistic descriptors that differentiate various odors are limited. A weak link between the olfactory perception and languages is documented in the literature (Majid, 2015a;Majid & Burenhult, 2014), and researchers often complain that "varieties of smell have no name" (Iatropoulos et al., 2018;Plato, 1925). Can different smells be expressed in words and can people reliably express their olfactory experiences? These questions, to the best of our knowledge, are not adequately addressed in the literature (Iatropoulos et al., 2018) and this paper is an attempt to explore these in depth. | Olfaction: Difficult to communicatePeople often use gestures, facial expressions, and linguistic variations in speech to convey different feelings (e.g., sweet/bitter tastes,

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smelling speech sounds: Association of odors with texture‐related ideophones

Uchida

Pathak

Motoki

2021

Journal of Sensory Studies

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“…But this is only one among the several food‐related factors influencing choice, together with flavor, taste, smell, color, size, and so on. Because processors and distributors are free to use marketing to engender new needs and values, for example, by exploiting heuristic‐based shopping behaviors (Li et al, 2021; Motoki et al, 2021), the final result of market forces is uncertain. Evidently, the European Commission is counting on the attractiveness of healthy foods beyond nutritional and physical properties and pointing at their symbolic value and cultural appeal.…”

Section: Healthy Food As a Fashion: Lessons From Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

From farm to fork: The difficult journey of healthy food

Ginanneschi¹

2022

World Food Policy

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The new European “Farm to Fork” Strategy has been praised for addressing the issue of the long‐run sustainability of the food system. In this document, the link between human and planetary health is often recalled. However, consumers' aspiration to healthy food is dealt with only superficially. This article analyzes and challenges the position assumed by the European Commission on this topic, using a holistic and transdisciplinary approach to food, called pantrophy. Drawing on several disciplines beyond food science and economics, the author argues that health is not only a question of diet. As a social fact, healthy food is a blend of moral dilemma, a luxury, a fashion item, an object of desire, and a sign of distinction. Therefore, it will hardly become cheap and easily available, as suggested by the Strategy. For the same reason, even the market mechanism envisaged to spread healthier eating habits might prove ineffective. The author calls for a radical change of the European policy in order to ensure that access to healthy food does not become unjust, discriminatory, and a cause of social conflict. The challenge consists in shifting part of the governmental institutions' effort from changing consumption styles to guaranteeing the intrinsic quality of food at its source.

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“…A large body of research has now established a link between the linguistic features contained within a word (or a brand name) and product attributes (e.g., speed, taste, luxury, aggression, harshness, angularity, creaminess, femininity, likeability, size [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]). Of specific relevance to the current paper, both vowels [18][19][20] and consonants [8,13,14] have been shown to influence taste expectations and perception. Similarly, Spence and colleagues (e.g., [21][22][23][24]) have linked music or musical notes to the taste continuum.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is important since sound symbolic congruency in names and product or brand features has been shown to be a significant factor in product evaluation, purchase decision, and even post purchase evaluations [7,9,11,75,76]. To illustrate, the name Haagen Dazs has five consonants (one silent), out of which three (/g/, /d/, and /z/) are referred to as voiced obstruents which are considered to be particularly harsh sounding when pronounced [8,10,13,14]. The presence of multiple voiced obstruents do, however, connote luxuriousness as they are rarely encountered amongst household or necessity product brand names and are more often embedded into brand names in the luxury market [9].…”

Section: Managerial Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sooo Sweeet! Presence of Long Vowels in Brand Names Lead to Expectations of Sweetness

Pathak

Calvert

2021

Behavioral Sciences

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Throughout the history of languages, poets and writers have used linguistic tools to enhance euphony in their creations. One of the widely used tools to convey melody in any written (or spoken) creative art form is the use of long vowels. This paper examines the linkages between long (vs. short) vowel sounds and taste expectations of sweetness. Across four studies, we demonstrate that people expect products with brand names containing long vowels to taste sweeter than those including short vowel sounds. In studies 1 and 2, we demonstrate this association with the use of self-reported measures, and in studies 3 and 4, we employ indirect measures (implicit taste–shape correspondence and Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) paradigm) to show the effect holds at a subconscious level of processing. Previous research in this field has typically linked vowel position (high vs. low or front vs. back) with product or brand attribute expectations. This paper contributes to the growing body of literature in this field by demonstrating the importance of vowel length in sound symbolism, and more precisely, how it pertains to the taste continuum.

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Constructing healthy food names: On the sound symbolism of healthy food

Cited by 38 publications

References 104 publications

Smelling speech sounds: Association of odors with texture‐related ideophones

Smelling speech sounds: Association of odors with texture‐related ideophones

From farm to fork: The difficult journey of healthy food

Sooo Sweeet! Presence of Long Vowels in Brand Names Lead to Expectations of Sweetness

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