Charles Michel

A taste of Kandinsky: assessing the influence of the artistic visual presentation of food on the dining experience

BackgroundResearchers have demonstrated that a variety of visual factors, such as the colour and balance of the elements on a plate, can influence a diner’s perception of, and response to, food. Here, we report on a study designed to assess whether placing the culinary elements of a dish in an art-inspired manner would modify the diner’s expectations and hence their experience of food. The dish, a salad, was arranged in one of three different presentations: One simply plated (with all of the elements of the salad tossed together), another with the elements arranged to look like one of Kandinsky’s paintings, and a third arrangement in which the elements were organized in a neat (but non-artistic) manner. The participants answered two questionnaires, one presented prior to and the other after eating the dish, to evaluate their expectations and actual sensory experience.ResultsPrior to consumption, the art-inspired presentation resulted in the food being considered as more artistic, more complex, and more liked than either of the other presentations. The participants were also willing to pay more for the Kandinsky-inspired plating. Interestingly, after consumption, the results revealed higher tastiness ratings for the art-inspired presentation.ConclusionsThese results support the idea that presenting food in an aesthetically pleasing manner can enhance the experience of a dish. In particular, the use of artistic (visual) influences can enhance a diner’s rating of the flavour of a dish. These results are consistent with previous findings, suggesting that visual display of a food can influence both a person’s expectations and their subsequent experience of a dish, and with the common assumption that we eat with our eyes first.

Does the type of receptacle influence the crossmodal association between colour and flavour? A cross-cultural comparison

BackgroundWe report a cross-cultural study designed to investigate whether the type of receptacle in which a coloured beverage is presented influences the colour-flavour associations that consumers make. Participants from the United States of America (USA) and China were shown photographs of red, green, yellow, blue, orange, brown, and clear liquids in a water glass, a wine glass, a cocktail glass, and a plastic cup.ResultsThe two groups of participants exhibited different colour-flavour associations for the green, yellow, orange, and brown drinks when these were presented in the different receptacles, suggesting some interesting interactions between the receptacle, colour, and flavour. Cross-cultural differences were also observed in the colour-flavour associations for red and blue drinks that were independent of the type of container in which the drinks were presented.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the existence of an interaction between contextual factors (the receptacle in which a drink is presented) and the cultural background of our participants (China versus the USA) in terms of colour-flavour associations. Such results raise interesting questions regarding the underlying mechanisms responsible for these effects.

Airplane noise and the taste of umami

Have you ever noticed how many people ask for a Bloody Mary or tomato juice from the drinks trolley on airplanes? The air stewards have, and when you ask the people who order, they will tell you that they rarely order such a drink at any other time. Could it be that umami-rich tomato provides one of the only basic tastes that is relatively unaffected by the loud background noise that one is exposed to while in flight? That is the research suggestion, or hypothesis, outlined in this opinion piece. Should such a claim be validated by future research, the potential application for airline catering could be huge.

Plating manifesto (II): the art and science of plating

It is well known that people serve themselves more, not to mention eat more, when dining from larger bowls and plates than from smaller ones. But what about the other visual qualities of the plateware? Does the colour, shape and finish also influence a diner’s behaviour? How important are these extrinsic visual properties, or even the visual arrangement of the elements on the plate itself, in terms of modulating a diner’s eating behaviours and experiences? At a time when so much is known about the influence of the colour of individual food products on taste and flavour perception, and when so many modernist restaurants are using an increasingly eclectic range of visual designs for their dishes, there has been surprisingly little scientific research on how the more complex visual properties and arrangement of food presentations may affect the diner. Below, we argue that the exploration of these effects constitutes the next natural step in an increasingly fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration between chefs, psychologists, sensory scientists and designers. The most important research questions, then, are to identify the kinds of effects that the presentation style has on the multisensory consumption experiences and behaviours of diners, and to study the interactions between the different visual cues that are provided. Taken together, the evidence reviewed here helps to emphasize the fact that getting both the plateware and the plating right constitute surprisingly important components to sublimate the flavours of the food, in the delivery and experience of a great meal.

The plating manifesto (I): from decoration to creation

At a time when a growing number of chefs and innovative food industries are starting to set up their own research kitchens and work with renowned scientists, it is surprising to see that issues related to the visual presentation of food on the plate are being left out of these successful exchanges. The variety of presentations created by chefs, and the number of varieties of tableware now available to achieve them, represent a formidable opportunity for cognitive scientists to study the more complex effects of vision on food experiences, which certainly should not be missed. Chefs can also benefit from the new insights that a scientific approach can bring to these areas, which previously have often been left to intuition. In this manifesto, we claim that this transfer of knowledge represents much more than merely another addition to the art and science of cuisine: it is its essential completion, as gastronomy moves more and more toward the ideal of a total multisensory art, as captivating for the eye as it is for the palate. Before turning to the scientific recommendations and review in the second part of our manifesto, we want to promote a different approach to plating, which breaks with the more functional and decorative purposes of plate ware, and puts experiments in visual presentation at the heart of modernist culinary expression.

Cutlery matters: heavy cutlery enhances diners’ enjoyment of the food served in a realistic dining environment

BackgroundWe report a study conducted in a realistic dining environment, in which two groups of diners were served the same three-course meal. The presentation of the starter (centred vs. offset plating), the type of cutlery used for the main course, and the shape and colour of the plate on which that dessert was served were varied.ResultsThe results revealed that the weight and type of the cutlery exerted a significant impact on how artistically plated the main course was rated as being, how much the diners liked the food, and how much they would have been willing to pay for it. The change in the shape and colour of the plate also affected the diners’ liking for the dessert.ConclusionsTaken together, these results show that the diners’ appreciation of the food is affected by the type of the cutlery used to eat (in this case, knife and fork), in terms of liking, aesthetic value, and willingness to pay for the food, adding to a growing body of gastrophysics research highlighting the importance of food-extrinsic factors in modulating the diner’s opinion of the meal that they have been served.

The Butcher's Tongue Illusion

We report two experiments, based on a novel variant of the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), in which tactile stimulation is referred to an artificial (out-of-body) tongue. In the experiments reported here the participants tongue was stimulated while they looked at a mirrored dummy tongue. On average, the participants agreed with the statement that they felt as if they had been touched in the location where they saw the rubber tongue being touched (experiment 1), thus demonstrating visual capture. When the external tongue was illuminated with a laser pointer (experiment 2), a significant proportion of the participants reported feeling either tactile or thermal stimulation on their own tongue. These results therefore demonstrate that the multisensory integration of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive information that gives rise to the RHI can be extended to the tongue (a body part that is rarely seen directly).

Odd versus even: a scientific study of the ‘rules’ of plating

We report on the results of a series of large-scale computer-based preference tests (conducted at The Science Museum in London and online) that evaluated the widely-held belief that food should be plated in odd rather than even numbers of elements in order to maximize the visual appeal of a dish. Participants were presented with pairs of plates of food showing odd versus even number of seared scallops (3 vs. 4; 1–6 in Experiment 7), arranged in a line, as a polygon or randomly, on either a round or square white plate. No consistent evidence for a preference for odd or even numbers of food items was found, thus questioning the oft-made assertion that odd number of items on a plate looks better than an even number. The implications of these results are discussed.