A Dissociation Between Recognition and Hedonic Value in Caloric and Non-caloric Carbonated Soft Drinks

Abstract

Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is considered to be a contributor to diabetes and the epidemic of obesity in many countries. The popularity of non-caloric carbonated soft drinks as an alternative to SSBs may be a factor in reducing the health risks associated with SSBs consumption. This study focuses on the perceptual discrimination of SSBs from artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs). Fifty-five college students rated 14 commercially available carbonated soft drinks in terms of sweetness and likeability. They were also asked to recognize, if the drinks contained sugar or a non-caloric artificial sweetener. Overall, participants showed poor accuracy in discriminating drinks’ sweeteners, with significantly lower accuracy for SSBs than ASBs. Interestingly, we found a dissociation between sweetener recognition and drink pleasantness. In fact, in spite of a chance-level discrimination accuracy of SSBs, their taste was systematically preferred to the taste of non-caloric beverages. Our findings support the idea that hedonic value of carbonated soft drinks is dissociable from its identification and that the activation of the pleasure system seems not to require explicit recognition of the sweetener contained in the soft drink. We hypothesize that preference for carbonated soft drinks containing sugar over non-caloric alternatives might be modulated by metabolic factors that are independent from conscious and rational consumers’ choices.

Expected changes in obesity after reformulation to reduce added sugars in beverages: A modeling study

“…Recent evidence suggests that small reductions in added sugar content in SSBs have no effect on acceptance or pleasantness and could further increase the preference for less sweetened food or beverages [ 50 , 51 ]. Furthermore, experimental evidence has shown low ability of consumers to discriminate across SSB brands or type of sweetener [ 52 , 53 ]. In our models, the decreasing reduction scenario, which sets larger reductions on sugar content at the beginning, had the highest impact on weight at year 10; however, this scenario could imply a stronger change in flavor.…”

A systemic transformation of an arts and sciences curriculum to nurture inclusive excellence of all students through course-based research experiences

“…As a result of our CRE intervention, several peer-reviewed journal articles have resulted from CRE courses. Examples of CRE studies resulting in peer-reviewed articles with at least one undergraduate student in the list of authors include publications in computer science (Kuminski and Shamir, 2016;Chung and Kocherovsky, 2018;Paul et al, 2018;Shamir et al, 2019;Pleune et al, 2020), psychology (Delogu et al, 2016(Delogu et al, , 2020aDelogu and Lilla, 2017;Delogu, 2020), and chemistry (Willbur et al, 2016;Zhou and Zhou, 2020;Large et al, 2023). In our experience, not all the students involved in a given CRE course are included in the list of authors for several reasons.…”

The soda dipstick: A convenient and cost‐effective means of identifying the sugar content of soft drinks

“…Although the sugar content of drinks is usually made clear by producers, and in fact often used to promote a product, in social circumstances drinks packaging may not be readily available. In addition, previous investigation has shown that distinguishing sugar‐sweetened from sugar‐free products by taste is inaccurate . Reagent test strips (or dipsticks) are routinely used to identify the presence of glucose in urine.…”

“…In addition, previous investigation has shown that distinguishing sugar-sweetened from sugar-free products by taste is inaccurate. 4 Reagent test strips (or dipsticks) are routinely used to identify the presence of glucose in urine. The presence of glucose in solution is indicated by a color change on the test strip, which requires no advanced knowledge or training to recognize.…”