Introducing insects as a source of nutrients (e.g., protein) plays a key role in many countries’ environmental policies. However, westerners generally reject insects as an ingredient of food products and meals. The aim of our study was to assess if explicitly labelling food as containing insects and/or implying it by manipulating the appearance of food influences the participants’ perception of food products or their behavioral reaction to such products. Participants were asked to try a range of foods, none of which contained ingredients derived from insects. However, the experimental conditions varied with regard to food labelling (insect content) and appearance (traces of insect-like ingredients). We observed the participants’ non-verbal behavioral reactions to the foods. Next, the respondents filled in a questionnaire evaluating the food’s properties. Additionally, we asked the participants to fill in a set of questionnaires measuring other variables (food neophobia, disgust, variety seeking, etc.) The results showed that products labelled as containing insects are consumed with reluctance and in lower quantities despite their appearance. In addition, people with lower general neophobia and a higher tendency to seek variety tried the insect-labelled samples sooner than people from the other groups. Recommendations for marketing strategies are provided.

Despite their nutritional and ecological potential, insect-based food is rarely accepted by consumers. There may be a discrepancy between the consumers’ understanding of the need to reduce meat consumption and their personal food preferences. Our goal was to investigate the relationship between the acceptance of insects as a meat substitute, the willingness to buy and consume insect-based food, and the underlying factors. The study was conducted on a representative sample of the Polish population, and as in previous studies, our results showed that men who are more familiar with entomophagy pay more attention to the environmental impact of their food choices, are convenience-orientated and are more willing to accept insects as a meat substitute. However, people with higher levels of food neophobia and disgust sensitivity and lower levels of variety-seeking tendency are less willing to consume insects. Our study showed that the acceptance of insects as an alternative to meat (general perspective) does not translate into a willingness to buy and eat them (individual perspective). Consumers who declare their acceptance of insects as a meat substitute might not be willing to purchase insects for their consumption.

This study examines the relationship between the change in size and change in complexity of well-known/familiarized objects and exploratory activity regulation in rats. In our experiment, the rats were exposed to three types of environmental novelty in a well-familiarized chamber: (1) addition of new tunnels to the chamber, (2) increased size of a familiarized tunnel, and (3) increased complexity of the existing tunnels. The animals responded to the addition of new tunnels with a significant behavioural shift involving increased exploration of the newly installed tunnels. This effect was stable across all three test trials. The rats exposed to a change in size of the familiar object initially reacted with a behavioural shift towards the enlarged tunnel but then re-focused on the unchanged one. There was also a significant increase in the frequency of moving between the zones of the chamber. The experimental group exposed to an increased complexity of familiar objects responded with a pronounced behavioural shift towards the complex tunnel and then slightly intensified their exploration of the unchanged one. A decrease was also observed in the frequency of moving between the zones of the chamber in the first and second test trials. In the effect size analysis, no differences were found in any of the three groups, which suggests that all manipulations had similar impact. The data obtained in this study supports the view that in rats, curiosity is at least two-dimensional: activational and cognitive. The activational aspect of curiosity may be explained by novelty-related arousal processes, while the cognitive processes are activated at longer time intervals in response to more complex stimulation. The validation of this hypothesis requires further research involving manipulations with a recently standardized protocol for measuring free exploration.

Most animals, including rats, show a preference for more complex environments. This is demonstrated particularly well when complexity increases due to the addition of new elements to the environment. The aim of the study was to investigate the reaction to novelty, understood as a change in environmental properties that involve both changes in complexity and controllability. Controllability may allow for dealing with challenges of an environment of low predictability in a way that the animal’s own activity reduces the uncertainty of environmental events. In our study, the animals underwent a spontaneous exploration test in low-stress conditions. After a period of habituation to the experimental arena, additional stationary (increased complexity) and/or movable (increased complexity and controllability) tunnels were introduced, and the reaction of the rats to the novel objects was measured. The results of the study confirmed that an increase in the complexity of the environment through the addition of objects triggers a more intensive exploratory activity in rats. However, an increased spatial complexity combined with the movability of the novel objects seems to result in increased caution towards the novelty after an initial inspection of the changed objects. It suggests that the complexity of the novelty may trigger both neophilia and neophobia depending on the level of the predictability of the novel environment and that the movability of newly introduced objects is not independent of other parameters of the environment.

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