The Effects of Analogous Food Color on Perceived Flavor: A Factorial Investigation

ABSTRACT

We extend research testing the effects of food color on flavor perception to analogous color. Analogous colors are those found next to each other on the color wheel. Subjects were assigned the task of tasting and evaluating a fruit-flavored beverage. Actual fruit flavor at two levels and beverage color at three levels were manipulated in a full factorial, between-subjects design. Thus each subject tasted and evaluated a single color/flavor combination. Results show that the small differences in food color represented by analogous color are sufficiently distinct and meaningful to consumers to significantly affect their ability to correctly identify the flavor of color-associated foods, as well as to form distinct flavor profiles and particular preferences—much as the grosser distinctions represented by complementary food color have been shown to do previously.

KEYWORDS:

• Food color
• analogous color
• complementary color
• flavor
• taste test

Acknowledgments

We wish to gratefully acknowledge the generous assistance of Robert Aitken with the stimulus development portion of this research; Sailesh Agrawal, Sambhav Jain, Omkumar Krishnan, Shivam Malhotra, A. R. Mishra, and Varun Singh with survey administration; and Abhijit Biswas with aspects of the conceptual development. Authors are listed alphabetically. Each contributed equally, and each has approved the final article.

Supplemental

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