Effects of color and odor on judgments of sweetness among children and adults

Judgments in one sensory modality or dimension are often affected by information in other sensory dimensions even if they do not physically or physiologically interact. Examples of such psychological contextual effects are the enhancing effects of color and odor on judgments of sweetness. Children might be expected to be more influenced by irrelevant dimensions and thus might show increased context effects when asked about specific attributes. Two experiments investigated the effects of color change in a fruit beverage on sweetness judgements and the effects of an added aromatic flavor (vanilla) on judgments of sweetness, creaminess and liking of milk. Three groups of American children were tested, in age groups of 5 to 7, 8 to 10 and 11 to 14-years-old, and their responses and contextual effects were compared to those of adults. The strongest and most consistent effect across age groups was the enhancement of rated sweetness by added vanilla flavor in milk. Children did not show the expected effect of darker red colors raising sweetness judgments in the fruit beverage, and the II to 14-year-old group showed a trend in the opposite direction from adults (lighter red color judged as sweeter). The concept of sweetness may be more strongly associated to sweet aroma characteristics at an early age than to specific colors. The differences between adults and the II to 14-year-old group could arise from a number of sources, including product experiences, developmental and/ or cohort effects, and are worthy of further study. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.