What a Delicious Name! Articulatory Movement Effects on Food Perception and Consumption

Abstract

Modality-specific sensory systems are capable to directly influence human perception. This research investigates how the activation of oral movements that resemble either ingestion (inward movement) or expectoration (outward movement) kinematics affect food perception and consumption. We build on the idea that oral movements serve as simple knowledge basis for more complex judgments. Five studies show that unobtrusively activating oral movements through food names that mimic ingestion (vs. expectoration) lead to increases in perceived taste and food consumption. We provide evidence on the role of oral movement as the underlying mechanism driving the effects. We show that these effects take place across different languages and are consistent when we use words only, words and image, or actual products. Marketers should find important implications in recognizing that inward names can increase food evaluation and consumption.

Embodied Cognition, Sensory Marketing, and the Conceptualization of Consumers’ Judgment and Decision Processes: Introduction to the Issue

“…It has been shown that words or brand names that have inward (vs. outward) articulation direction (e.g., BAKO vs. KABO) are more likable and valuable. Further supporting this hypothesis, Rossi et al (2017) present five studies demonstrating that inward (vs. outward) food names result in better perceived taste and greater consumption of the food. Robustness of the phenomenon is shown by testing it in different languages, with words only, with words and pictures, and with actual products.…”

“…The present set of articles provides up-to-date reviews of what is currently known about a particular process or phenomenon. The range is wide, from fundamental processes across consumption contexts such as situated construction of preference (Rossi et al 2017;Topolinski 2017), desire (Papies et al 2017), meaning and attitude (Briñol et al 2017), to processes of relevance to specific domains, such as satiation in food consumption (Cornil 2017) and creativity enhancement through sensory experience (Zhu and Mehta 2017), to bodily processes with complex manifestations such as multiple meanings of verticality (Cian 2017) and diverse forms of contagion (Huang, Ackerman, and Newman 2017). The myriad topics covered in these articles bring forth several key insights for revising traditional models of consumer judgment and behavior and for specifying processes of embodied cognition and sensory marketing.…”

“…Basic affective orientations like approach and avoidance arise from the body as much as the head. They can be triggered not only by cognitive evaluations of good and bad, but also by subtle sensorimotor experiences such as motor proprioception in arm flexors versus extensors (Briñol et al 2017), mental simulation of consumption (Papies et al 2017), and oral articulation patterns resembling ingestion versus expectoration (Rossi et al 2017;Topolinski 2017).…”

My username is IN! The influence of inward vs. outward wandering usernames on judgments of online seller trustworthiness

“…This original and surprising in–out effect occurred under silent reading for both German and English‐speaking participants (Topolinski et al., ) and was replicated by independent research groups in English (Kronrod, Lowrey, & Ackerman, ), Portuguese (Godinho & Garrido, , ), and French language (Rossi, Pantoja, & Borges, ; Rossi, Pantoja, Borges, & Werle, ). The mechanism that is assumed to underlie the in–out effect is the activation of motor‐associated motivational states promoted by the inward and outward oral muscle movements involved in the articulation of words (e.g., the articulation of inward and outward words is similar to approach and avoidance movements of swallowing and spitting, respectively; e.g., Topolinski & Bakhtiari, ; Topolinski & Boecker, ; Topolinski et al., ).…”

Oral kinematics: examining the role of edibility and valence in the in-out effect

“…Accordingly, it was hypothesized that these motor resemblances between articulation movements and ingestion-related oral acts trigger the respective affective connotations thereby making inward words more positive than ORAL KINEMATICS: EXAMINING EDIBILITY AND VALENCE 4 outward words. Supporting this conjecture, it has been shown that inward compared to outward naming of foods makes dishes more appealing (Topolinski & Boecker, 2016b) and even increases the intake of these foods (Rossi, Pantoja, & Borges, 2015;Rossi, Pantoja, Borges, & Werle, 2016, 2017.…”