Tasting Color: The Effects Color Have on Taste - Research Paper Example

Tasting Color: The Effects Color Have on Taste Affiliation Human beings have different perceptions regarding how foods may taste depending on the color. An appealing color may be associated with a good taste especially in foods, fruits, and drinks. The taste buds in humans have a big role in determining the tastes such as salty, sour, sweet, and bitter any time they come into contact with food substances or other items. To determine the effect of color on the taste 20 participants carried out experiment involving colored water and colored cups. The participants were to rate red water in a clear cup and a red cup and red water in a clear cup and red cup. The results showed that color enhances taste and many people look at the color of the container before considering the contents inside. Color can alter the taste and preferences of individuals as results showed that the participants preferred clear water in the red cups. However, a number of them preferred clear water in clear cups indicating that not everybody is always after the color or appearance of the container. Many people forget other attributes such as the quality, price, and the brand of certain products such as a drink. Introduction The evidence pertaining to the notion that color affects our perceive taste is rather ambiguous. This is because our sense of taste is mostly deceived by what we see. Hence, there is no conclusive evidence of whether this is true. However, human beings have certain perceptions of how things like food or drinks should taste depending on their color. When they do not appear as expected, they trigger the brain to think that they taste different too (Koch& Koch, 2003). For example, presenting somebody with a plate of yellow beef, green stew and black rice, one would likely not taste them because he or she assumes the taste is off-putting or abnormal. This is because the color is unusual for the items. From birth, nature trains us to identify and make judgment of our environment or items like food based largely on the measure of colors. The association of certain colors with specific food taste begins early in life and remains throughout life although there are others acquired in life through previous items we saw or learnt. Thus, there is an influence to relate the color of what we see with the taste (Demers, 2013). In addition, scientific studies show that human beings use visual senses for color to identify and make judgment of the quality and taste of what we eat (University of Chicago Press Journals, 2007). The first taste we have on a food item is almost a perception through visual cues. Although the food item may have different features, color and visual appearance would be the most obvious thing that would stimulate someone towards the item. Humans can be termed as visual animals when it comes to assigning priority to sensory information. When there is uncertainty or conflict in the information, one receives; one will highly depend on what he or she sees (Beverage Coloring and Taste, 2013). Although, he or she might think that the sense of taste and odors should prevail in terms of food perception, it is surprising that the sense of sight is very important. This is because the initial judgment of food items or beverages relies on appearance. That is, the color associated with that item. Even when our ability to identify common flavors is poor, vision serve as a reliable source of information. A person can visualize the color of a certain flavor and make decision about its taste (Humphrey, Puchala, Runyan & Williams, 2005). Visual information of food provides significant clues to other sensory like brain hence creating an expectation of how the food is about to taste. This is highly influenced by the color of the food. For example, when an apple is green or red, one expects a certain degree of ripeness and more specifically certain levels of sweetness and acidity (Ferguson, 2011). Therefore, he or she can make choice of which apple to consume depending with the color he or she sees. Taste buds play a critical role in determining the four basic groups of taste, which include salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. When these buds come into contact with food, they transmit a signal to the brain to interpret the taste, but, because people look at food before they eat it, the eyes send the signal to the brain even before the taste buds do so. This creates a perception of the food taste that a person is about to taste. Most people tend to forget other attributes like quality, price, and brand of a product like a drink and just make choices depending on their color (Doorne, Wuillemin & Spence, 2014). This means that color is one the main factor while trying to enhance taste. Method Participants: The study sample had 20 participants, all of which are students enrolled in a Psychology class. Given the simplicity of the experiment, it lasted for seven minutes, with a three-minute interval. Materials: Several bottles of water were purchased from a local store. In addition twenty pairs of disposable cups were also purchased, half of which were red, and the other half transparent, and some red food coloring as well. Participants were in two groups. Each participant would drink a pair of drinks, one group would drink red water and clear water with clear cups, and the other group would drink red water and clear water with red cups. Then rate the drinks on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the drink having an awful taste, and 10 implying the drink tastes very nice. The participants would then give their independent honest comments about the set of drinks. Procedure: The experimenters informed the students that the experiment involved taking a pair of flavored drinks, after which they were to rate the corresponding tastes of each. The study involved presenting each participant with the two cups of flavored drinks, allowing them the choice to select which cup to take first. After consuming their first choice, the students had some few minutes to rate the drink and give their honest comments, before proceeding to the second cup. Once they were through with giving their feedback on the first cup of drink, they proceeded to the second cup, drank, and gave their comments. The participants repeated the procedure a couple of times with rating and opinions recorded. Thereafter, they selected a second set of students and the whole procedure followed only that with this second set of students, there were no transparent cups; all the cups used were red. The experimenters systematically recorded the results for both the two sets. Results The results scores showed a variation in terms of the color of the cup and that of water. The results from the clear cup with clear water showed a mean of 6.1 while that of the clear cup with red water had a mean of 5.6. The standard deviation of the clear cup that contained clear water was 2.8, and that of the clear cup with red water was 3.5. The results from the red cup holding clear water showed an average and standard deviation of 6.6 and 3.5 respectively. Considering the red cup with red water, the mean stood at 5.1 while the standard deviation was 4.2. Each of the students spent about 1 minute on average in each particular session. Our group’s prediction was that whenever the students were given two cups of water with different colors (red and clear) and the cups were also different (red and clear), they had difference preferences for the flavor of water. Most of the participants favored clear water in the colored cup as the results indicate. There was a slight significance between the color of the cup and the color of the water it holds as indicated in a bar graph drawn to represent the results. [FIGURE 1] A table showing the significance between cup color (x-axis) and water color. From the graph, the majority preferred clear water in the clear cup and only a few preferred the red water in the clear cup. The overall results also indicate a greater preference for the clear water in the red cup. A two-tailed test results conducted on the same scores indicated four simple main effects and two main effects as the figure below shows. P values for the four simple main effects and the two main effects. [FIGURE 2] For the figure and considering the red cup, the statistical effect of the test showed that P Read More