Multisensory simulation boosts healthy food acceptance

For a long time, the stereotype that “healthy = tasteless” has influenced the public’s willingness to choose healthy food. Recently, a study entitled Taste the joy: How multisensory simulation enhances young adults' hedonic expectations for healthy foods, published in the international journal Food Quality and Preference, has revealed the mechanisms through which multisensory simulation improves hedonic expectations for healthy foods through a series of pre-registered experiments, providing a scientific basis for encouraging healthier dietary choices.

The study was jointly carried out by Dr Yaxiong Li from the International Business School Suzhou (IBSS) at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) and scholars from Soochow University. Focusing on young adults,  the research examined the number of sensory combinations, and differences across food categories, and identified key findings on how  multisensory simulation influences hedonic expectations for healthy foods.

The study found that the improvement effect of multisensory simulation in hedonic expectations for healthy foods does not increase linearly with the number of sensory cues, but instead follows an inverted U-shaped relationship, with three sensory cues identified as the optimal threshold. A single sensory cue has a limited effect on improving hedonic expectations for healthy foods; three sensory cues  achieve the strongest effect, while more than three can lead to  cognitive overload, resulting in diminishing or even negative effects.

At the same time, there are significant differences in the improvement effectiveness of different sensory cue combinations. The visual-auditory-olfactory is the optimal one, and its effect on improving hedonic expectations and willingness to pay for healthy foods is significantly better than other combinations including touch. The reason is that olfactory signals can be directly processed by the brain’s  limbic system, rapidly triggering emotional processing and food-related memories, while the cognitive processing of tactile perception is more complex, making it difficult to form effective cross-modal integration and likely to distract attention.

The study also confirmed that the improvement effect of multisensory simulation on food hedonic expectations is category-specific. This method can significantly improve the public’s expected pleasure and willingness to pay for healthy foods, and to a lesser extent increase willingness to eat healthily, but has no obvious impact on the hedonic expectations of unhealthy foods. In addition, direct sensory interaction with real food is more effective than text-based mental simulation in translating  hedonic expectations into actual willingness to pay.

The study has important theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, it verifies the core view of embodied cognition theory and fills a research gap in the field of actively improving the hedonic appeal of healthy foods through multisensory simulation. Practically, it provides actionable strategies for encouraging healthier eating habits and supporting the development  of the healthy food industry, while also offering  for sectors such as catering and retail.

Yaxiong (Sherry) Li received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Auckland in 2021. Her primary research lies at the intersection of experimental and behavioural economics, with a particular focus on gender, leadership, decision-making, neuroeconomics, and consumer behaviour and preferences. She combines laboratory experiments, field surveys, biometric measurements (such as EEG and eye-tracking), and cross-cultural methods to investigate how individuals make strategic, emotional, and value-driven choices.

Food Quality and Preference is the official journal of the Sensometric Society and the official journal of the European Sensory Science Society. It publishes original research, critical reviews, and short communications in sensory and consumer science, and sensometrics. In addition, the journal publishes special issues on  timely topics and research emerging from major  conferences.