Sparking interest in restaurant dishes? Cognitive and affective processes underlying dish design and ecological origin. An fMRI study

What Do You Want to Eat? Influence of Menu Description and Design on Consumer’s Mind: An fMRI Study

“…In general, the results showed that pleasant and unpleasant design combinations activate different regions at the brain level and also generate different attitudes, according to previous research on the effects of combinations [ 2 ]. Findings revealed more positive attitudes towards emotionally described dishes compared to rationally described dishes.…”

“…Our study results showed that these areas are also activated in response to food images when the dishes are pleasurable. Previous studies on the neural processing of rewards showed that the activation of areas involved in value (such as the posterior gyrus cingulate or pre(cuneus) are the result of the retrieval of episodic memories, linked to attractive dishes [ 2 ]. Activity recorded in the previous literature associates with the rewards allows us to answer our first research question.…”

“…The information about each menu dish shows clues to the potential customer about the upcoming dining experience [ 1 ]. This information will help the consumer to imagine the shape, flavour, or taste of the food [ 2 ]. The way the menu content is presented by restaurants can determine the type of restaurant and its personality, even the brand image (ecological, luxury, minimalism or fast food) [ 3 ].…”

“…The relevance for consumers of a food’s attractiveness and appetite has led some researchers to study its influence on decision-making [ 6 ]. Some studies have analysed the forms of food, the design of menus, and the behaviour of consumers when faced with different stimuli [ 2 , 7 , 8 ]. For example, when the same food is served in different coloured dishes, the food sensory and hedonic perception changes [ 8 ].…”

Neurogastronomy as a Tool for Evaluating Emotions and Visual Preferences of Selected Food Served in Different Ways

“…Neuroimaging method positron emission tomography (PET) was used to provide evidence that food presentation increases metabolism throughout the brain cortices [17], and the EEG technique demonstrated the effects of wine flavors on consumer preferences [18]. Another example of the use of a neuroimaging method, specifically functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) to verify how food presentation affects the consumer's brain is the work of [19], and a series of fMRI scans of participants while viewing color pictures of food was collected by Wolfe et al [20].…”