The relationship between choice and eye movement has gained marked interest. The gaze bias effect, i.e., the tendency to look longer at items that are eventually chosen, has been shown to occur in the first dwell (initial cohesion of fixations for an item). In the two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) paradigm, participants would look at one of the items first (defined as first look; FL), and they would then move and look at another item (second look; SL). This study investigated how the order in which the chosen items were looked at modulates the first dwell gaze bias effect. Participants were asked to assert their preferences and perceptual 2AFC decisions about human faces (Experiment 1) and daily consumer products (Experiment 2), while their eye movements were recorded. The results showed that the first dwell gaze bias was found only when the eventually chosen item was looked at after another one; the chosen item was looked at for longer as compared to the not-chosen item in the SL, but not in the FL. These results indicate that participants actively allocate more time to looking at a subsequently chosen item only after they perceive both items in the SL. Therefore, the selective encoding seems to occur in the early comparison stage of visual decision making, and not in the initial encoding stage. These findings provide insight into the relationship between choice and eye movement.

Previous studies have shown that affording people choice increases their satisfaction with subsequent experiences: the choice effect. However, it remains unclear whether the choice effect occurs in the hedonic response to foods and beverages. Thus, the present study aimed to demonstrate the choice effect on the palatability perception. Ready-to-serve curries and tea were presented as options in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, respectively. Experiment 1 failed to demonstrate significant differences among palatability ratings for a curry chosen by participants and for a curry chosen by the experimenter. However, Experiment 2 demonstrated that participants perceived a tea chosen by themselves as more palatable than another tea chosen by the experimenter, regardless of the fact that the two cups of tea were identical. Intriguingly, the effect was obtained only when the number of options was neither too small nor too big. These results indicate that the exercise of choice from an optimal number of options, even when the choice is ostensible and illusory, makes people perceive their chosen foods and beverages as being more palatable. Some implications for the domain of food business are also discussed.

An increasing number of studies have shown that several factors other than food and drink itself, such as design of packaging, cutlery and plateware, slightly but significantly affect taste/flavor perception of food and drink. This study aimed to broaden the knowledge by investigating the influence of the color of the plateware both on expectation and perception of chocolate taste/flavor by applying a between-participants design. Participants (48 Japanese university students) were presented with four different chocolates, and rated their expected (pre-tasting) and perceived (post-tasting) taste/flavor of the chocolates. While half of the participants were presented with the chocolates on red platewares, the other half on black platewares. The results showed that, whereas the chocolates were expected as more bitter when presented on the red plateware than the black plateware, they were perceived as sweeter when tasted from the red plateware than the black plateware. The observed discrepancy between pre-tasting expectation and post-tasting perception cannot be simply explained by sensation transference (i.e., expectation assimiliation), which would have predict that both expected and percieved sweetness would be enhanced in the red plateware condition. Possible explanations and practical implications are also discussed.

Significant efforts have been made in the wine industry to assist customers in making purchase decisions and enhance their drinking experience by providing verbal descriptions of the complex sensory characteristics of wine. However, the influence of such verbal descriptions on wine flavour perception and evaluation has not been examined. To fill this gap, this exploratory study performed an experiment using white Riesling wine from the 2021 German vintage and red Muscat Bailey A (MBA) wine from the 2019 Japanese vintage. Forty-six Japanese individuals (23 social drinkers and 23 wine experts) participated and were presented with two glasses of Riesling wine and two glasses of MBA wine with different verbal descriptions. One glass of Riesling/MBA wine was served with a description including its distinct aroma descriptor (i.e., a ‘petrol’ note for the Riesling wine and a ‘strawberry candy’ note for the MBA wine). For the other glass, the description did not include the descriptor. The participants were asked to taste the wines and rate their palatability, perceived sweetness intensities, acidity, astringency, alcohol sensation, body, and expensiveness on a 7-point scale. The results demonstrated that the social drinkers rated the Riesling wine with the ‘petrol’ descriptor as heavier-bodied and more expensive compared to the same wine without the descriptor. The wine experts were not as influenced as the social drinkers, but the experts rated the Riesling wine with the ‘petrol’ descriptor as less expensive. In the case of MBA wine with the ‘strawberry candy’ descriptor, the social drinkers rated it as more expensive, whereas the wine experts rated it as more palatable than the same wine without the descriptor. The results indicated that verbal descriptions of wine aroma indeed modulated the flavour perception and evaluation of wine, but the modulation effect varied between social drinkers and wine experts.

Natural wine is a highly contested category lacking universally accepted definitions and certification standards, yet consumers and wine professionals routinely judge whether a wine appears to be a natural wine. This study examined how visual impressions of wine labels relate to perceived naturalness and natural wine categorization in the absence of formal natural-wine certification cues. Seven wine labels were evaluated in two studies conducted in Japan. Study 1 involved novice consumers who rated label impressions and perceived naturalness, whereas Study 2 involved experienced wine consumers and wine professionals who additionally evaluated whether each wine appeared to be a natural wine. A participant-level exploratory factor analysis conducted in Study 1 identified two perceptual dimensions of wine-label impressions, termed Classicness and Delicateness. The resulting factor structure was subsequently applied to Study 2. Across both studies, perceived naturalness showed a consistent positive association with Delicateness. In contrast, natural wine categorization was associated with lower Classicness in wine-level analyses, although this relationship was not supported by participant-level mixed-effects analyses and therefore remained exploratory. Perceived naturalness and natural wine categorization showed a weak positive association, but the relationship did not reach statistical significance. These findings suggest that wine-label impressions contribute to perceived naturalness and provide preliminary evidence that they may also contribute to natural wine categorization. More broadly, the results indicate that perceptions of naturalness and natural wine categorization may be shaped not only by technical criteria and formal definitions but also by shared perceptual expectations and category representations.