Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein

Health-related determinants of organic food consumption in the Netherlands

Health-related determinants of organic food consumption in a sample of customers of health and natural food stores were compared to those in a nationwide representative household sample. Organic food buyers considered themselves more responsible for their own health and were more likely to undertake preventive health action than the general population. Wholesomeness, absence of chemicals, environment friendliness, and a better taste were the primary reasons to buy organic foods. The customers of health and natural food stores found appearance, ease of preparation, and fitness for slimming less important than the nationwide sample. Stepwise discriminant analyses showed that buyer groups were distinguished best on the basis of education, body mass index, scores on the Health Locus of Control scales, or interest in vegetarianism and naturopathy. The differences between buyers and non-buyers on a multitude of measures suggest that organic food consumption is part of a way of life. It results from an ideology, connected to a particular value system, that affects personality measures, attitudes, and consumption behavior.

Sources of positive and negative emotions in food experience

Emotions experienced by healthy individuals in response to tasting or eating food were examined in two studies. In the first study, 42 participants reported the frequency with which 22 emotion types were experienced in everyday interactions with food products, and the conditions that elicited these emotions. In the second study, 124 participants reported the extent to which they experienced each emotion type during sample tasting tests for sweet bakery snacks, savoury snacks, and pasta meals. Although all emotions occurred from time to time in response to eating or tasting food, pleasant emotions were reported more often than unpleasant ones. Satisfaction, enjoyment, and desire were experienced most often, and sadness, anger, and jealousy least often. Participants reported a wide variety of eliciting conditions, including statements that referred directly to sensory properties and experienced consequences, and statements that referred to more indirect conditions, such as expectations and associations. Five different sources of food emotions are proposed to represent the various reported eliciting conditions: sensory attributes, experienced consequences, anticipated consequences, personal or cultural meanings, and actions of associated agents.

Both perceptual and conceptual factors influence taste-odor and taste-taste interactions

Observers are often asked to make intensity judgments for a sensory attribute of a stimulus that is embedded in a background of “irrelevant” stimulusdimensions. Under some circumstances, these background dimensions of the stimulus can influence intensity judgments for the target attribute. For example, judgments of sweetness can be influenced by the other taste or-odor qualities of a solution (Frank & Byram, 1988; Kamen et al., 1961). Experiments 1 and 2 assessed the influence of stimulus context, instructional set, and reference stimuli on cross-quality interactions in mixtures of chemosensory stimuli. Experiment 1 demonstrated that odor-induced changes in sweetness judgments were dramatically influenced when subjects rated multiple attributes of the stimulus as compared with when they judged sweetness alone. Several odorants enhanced sweetness when sweetness alone was judged, while sweetness was suppressed for these same stimuli when total-intensity ratings were broken down into ratings for the sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and fruitiness of each solution. Experiment 2 demonstrated a similar pattern of results when bitterness was the target taste. In addition, Experiment 2 showed that the instructional effects applied to both taste-odorand taste-taste mixtures. It was concluded that the taste enhancement and suppression observed for taste-odor and taste-taste mixtures are influenced by (1) instructional sets which influence subjects’ concepts of attribute categories, and (2) the perceptual similarities among the quality dimensions of the stimulus.

Visualising Fragrances through Colours: The Mediating Role of Emotions

To facilitate communication about fragrances, one can use the colours people tend to associate with their smells. We investigated to what extent odour–colour correspondences for fine fragrances can be accounted for by underlying emotional associations. Odour–colour matches and degree-of-fit judgments revealed that odours were matched to colours non-randomly. Matching colours differed mainly on blackness (brightness), and less on chromaticness (saturation) and hue. Furthermore, we found a consistent negative relationship between odour–colour degree-of-fit ratings and the difference between the odour scores and the colour scores on one of the emotion dimensions (pleasure). This suggests that emotional associations may partly underlie odour–colour correspondences.

Shifts in sensory dominance between various stages of user–product interactions

In the area of product design, sensory dominance can be defined as the relative importance of different sensory modalities for product experience. It is often assumed that vision dominates the other senses. In the present study, we asked 243 participants to describe their experiences with consumer products in various situations: while buying a product, after the first week, the first month, and the first year of usage. The data suggest that the dominant sensory modality depends on the period of product usage. At the moment of buying, vision is the most important modality, but during the usage the other sensory modalities gain importance. The roles of the different modalities during usage are product-dependent. Averaged over 93 products analyzed in this study, after one month of usage touch becomes more important than vision, and after one year vision, touch and audition appear to be equally important. We conclude that to create a long-lasting positive product experience, designers need to consider user-product interaction at different stages of product usage and to determine which sensory modality dominates product experience at each stage.

Surprise As a Design Strategy

Imagine yourself queuing for the cashier’s desk in a supermarket. Naturally, you have picked the wrong line, the one that does not seem to move at all. Soon, you get tired of waiting. Now, how would you feel if the cashier suddenly started to sing? Many of us would be surprised and, regardless of the cashier’s singing abilities, feel amused. The preceding story is an example of how a surprise can transform something very normal, and maybe even boring, into a more pleasant experience. Analogously, a surprise in a product can overcome the habituation effect that is due to the fact that people encounter many similar products everyday. Colin Martindale describes this effect as ‘the gradual loss of interest in repeated stimuli’.¹ A surprise reaction to a product can be beneficial to both a designer and a user. The designer benefits from a surprise reaction because it can capture attention to the product, leading to increased product recall and recognition, and increased word-ofmouth.² Or, as Jennifer Hudson puts it, the surprise element “elevates a piece beyond the banal”.³ A surprise reaction has its origin in encountering an unexpected event. The product user benefits from the surprise, because it makes the product more interesting to interact with. In addition, it requires updating, extending or revising the knowledge the expectation was based on. This implies that a user can learn somethingnew about a product or product aspect. Designers already use various strategies to design surprises in their products. Making use of contrast, mixing design styles or functions, using new materials or new shapes, and using humor are just a few of these. The lamp ‘Porca Miseria!’ designed by Ingo Maurer that is shown in the left part of Figure 1 consists of broken pieces of expensive porcelain tableware, making it a lamp with a unique shape. The idea that another product had to be destroyed to make this lamp may inflict feelings of 3 puzzlement and amusement on someone who sees this lamp. The perfume ‘Flowerbomb’ (right part of Figure 1) designed by fashion designers Victor & Rolf is another example. The bottle is shaped like a hand grenade and it holds a sweet smelling, soft pink liquid. By combining conflicting elements in their perfume bottle, Victor & Rolf have succeeded in creating a perfume that attracts attention amidst the dozens of perfumes that line the walls of perfumeries.

Contextual and sequential effects on judgments of sweetness intensity

Presenting stimuli from skewed concentration distributions affects mean responses on category scales. However, if the number of categories on the response scale is increased, the degree of separation between the mean responses obtained for a positively as opposed to a negatively skewed concentration distribution diminishes. The present study investigates the effect of skewed concentration distributions upon ratings on a line scale and compares it to the context effect found for a 7-point category scale. In addition, sequential dependencies between consecutive stimuli and responses are investigated in order to assess their relevance in tasteintensity scaling studies. The context effects are similar for the 7-point category scale and for the line scale. The analyses of sequential effects show that both preceding responses and preceding stimuli affect current responses. However, since these two factors work in opposite directions, only a small contrast effect from the previous stimulus is significant in an overall analysis. The present study shows that even though the overall sequential effects between consecutive stimuli and responses are small, the effect of experimental context may be considerable. Since subjective context is established at the beginning of a session and sequential dependencies operate throughout the whole session, it is argued that contextual and sequential effects are only indirectly related.

Design Strategies to Postpone Consumers' Product Replacement: The Value of a Strong Person-Product Relationship

From an environmental perspective, the early replacement of durables is generally detrimental. This article examines ‘ensuring a strong person-product relationship’ as a design strategy to postpone product replacement. If a person experiences a strong relationship with his/her product, this can result in more protective behaviours towards this product and in product longevity. A crucial precondition for a long-lasting relationship is that consumers feel the product is irreplaceable. Such a condition is obtained only when a products meaning is deeply anchored in a specific product and the product and its meaning are inseparable. Designers can encourage the products irreplaceability by stimulating the formation of memories associated with a product or by creating unique and personal products. Several examples of design strategies are discussed.

Effects of product beliefs on product perception and liking

When consumers taste a food product in a real-life situation, their perception of the product is not only based on the sensory characteristics of the product per se. Product perception is often biased by preconceived ideas about product properties and is affected by the consumer’s judgmental frame of reference. If these preconceived ideas are concerned what the product is,they are called perceptual or analytical expectations or product beliefs. If these ideas relate to whether a consumer expects to like the product, they are called hedonic or affective expectations or product attitudes. Product beliefs and attitudes are stored in memory in the form of a network of associative knowledge, that is, a schema. When a market researcher inquires after a consumer’s product expectations, different pieces of information are retrieved as activation spreads through this network of linked nodes. The network will provide a coherent picture of the product under investigation, often referred to as the product image.

Emotional bonding with personalised products

This study investigates the effect of personalising a products appearance on the emotional bond with a product. We present a conceptual model for the relationships between the effort invested during the process of product personalisation, the degree of self-expression, and the degree of emotional bonding. Data from a questionnaire study in which respondents (n=149) filled out questions concerning their (non-) personalised bicycle support our expectations. By personalising the products appearance, a person invests effort in the product. Our findings show that the amount of effort invested has a direct effect (as a result of the extended period of time spent with the product) and an indirect effect (via the personalised products self-expressive value) on the strength of the emotional bond with the product. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for product designers.