Sensory-specific satiety: Added insights from autonomic nervous system responses and facial expressions

Abstract

• We measured sensory-specific satiety with autonomic nervous system responses and facial expressions.• Consumption of the test meals resulted overall in increased heart rate, reduced skin conductance and skin temperature, as well as intensified disgusted facial expressions.• Skin conductance and skin temperature reflected effects of sensory-specific satiety.• Sad and angry facial expressions showed effects of sensory-specific satiety. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o As a food is consumed, its perceived pleasantness declines compared to that of other foods. Although this phenomenon, referred to as sensory-specific satiety, is well-established by means of measuring food intake and pleasantness ratings, this study was aimed at gaining more insight into the mechanisms that underlie such cognitive output behavior using two measures used in (food) emotion research, namely Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) responses and facial expressions. Twenty-four healthy female participants visited four times in a hungry state, in which they received 4 different semi-liquid meals (2 sweet and 2 savory) delivered via a time-controlled pump leading to sensory-specific satiety. Before and after the meals they were presented with a sip of all four different test meals where ANS responses (heart rate, skin conductance and skin temperature) and facial expressions were recorded. As expected, pleasantness ratings showed a significant decrease after eating the same meal or a meal similar in taste (sweet or savory) (p b 0.001), and less decrease after eating a meal with a different taste. In general, consumption of the test meals resulted in increased heart rate, reduced skin conductance and skin temperature, as well as intensified anger and disgusted facial expressions (p b 0.05). In addition, skin conductance, skin temperature, sad and angry expressions also showed effects reflecting sensory-specific satiety. In conclusion, ANS responses and facial expressions indicate that sensory specific satiety of foods 1) not only reduces the food's pleasantness but also arousal and 2) are possibly mediated by changes in food emotions.

A Multisensor Data Fusion Approach for Predicting Consumer Acceptance of Food Products

“…Our results agreed with those of He et al [30]. In this study, He and coworkers measured the changes of facial expression for the same, similar, and different taste conditions.…”

“…Though it has been reported that the perception of basic tastes is linked with specific facial movements (for example, sourness with the lips or bitterness with the eyes and forehead) [29], many different variables can affect both FER and physiological changes: how hungry a consumer feels, the type of food tested, and the time elapsed since the beginning of the test. Even in tests as short as 10 s, a consumer may exhibit several facial expressions [30]. Moreover, changes in facial expression are harder to determine when tasting food products, compared to smelling a perfume or watching a video [25], since the jaw movement produced by chewing and the occasional facial occlusion (because of the hand that takes the sample to the mouth) are often the cause of misreading in FER algorithms.…”

Maternal high-fat diet triggers metabolic syndrome disorders that are transferred to first and second offspring generations

“…On the other hand, our present data suggest that the parasympathetic activity is not yet significantly altered because of any change in the sensitivity of the reflex bradycardia. Furthermore, it is well established in the literature that the increase in sympathetic activity induces an increase in plasma leptin (9) , dietary intakes (44,45) , adipose tissue (46,47) and IR (48,49) . In this way, in the present study, the increase in sympathetic activity must be involved in all cardio-metabolic alterations induced by the H diet of the progenitors that were transmitted to female and male F1H and F2H offspring.…”

The State of Automated Facial Expression Analysis (AFEA) in Evaluating Consumer Packaged Beverages

“…Another study focusing on a temporal design revealed that repeated bites of the same food show an initial peak in happy emotions, with each successive bite showing a less intense response. The decrease is less if the next bite has a different flavor [52]. A temporal experimental design may be a more realistic model for evaluating beverages than a single consumption event and will certainly provide a broader set of data for analysis, yet literature is limited.…”