Tasty words: Using frame semantics to enhance consumer liking of potato chips and apples

Abstract

Previous research indicates that speakers of American English chiefly use crispy when referring to dry foods and crunchy when referring to wet foods, suggesting that these near‐synonyms have different semantic frames. The present study is the first to address how speakers of American English process crispy and crunchy by investigating whether foods with frame‐semantically (in)congruent food labels influence thoughts about and taste perception of foods. Taste tests with dry and wet foods labeled (in)congruently with regards to their water content showed that while thoughts remained unaffected, the frame‐semantically incongruent context produced significantly higher taste ratings than the frame‐semantically congruent context. Further research is necessary to explain whether and to what extent these findings can be generalized to other foods and near‐synonyms.

Crossmodal correspondences and interactions between texture and taste perception

“…Although experience does not seem to lie at the basis of how we associate textures and tastes, the marketing seems to stick and may result in confusion when we are asked to pair a certain taste with a texture such as crunchy, which is used to make not only chips but also chocolate-nut bars more appealing. This alternating between labeling dry foods as not only crispy but also crunchy could be a deliberate effort to capture the consumer's attention through a mismatch, considering that Johnson and Pfenninger (2021) have found evidence suggesting incongruent context, applied through labels, resulted in significantly higher ratings of taste than the congruent context. This mismatch has been suggested to render increased attention to the sensory experience ( Donohue et al, 2013 ).…”