Emoji meanings (pleasure-arousal-dominance dimensions) in consumer research : between-country and interpersonal differences

In line with the increasing popularity of emoji, the need for methodological research into these pictorial representations of emotion remains. The present research contributes to this goal by continuing to establish the meaning of emoji and exploring these according to between-country and interpersonal differences. The emoji (n = 12) were selected to span the valence x arousal emotion space, and the PAD model (Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance) was used to establish emoji meaning for the three dimensions, operationalized as measurement on 6 x 3 semantic differentials. Participants in the main study came from three countries-Germany, Singapore, and Malaysia (n = 2465), and a supplementary study included the United Kingdom and New Zealand (n = 600) (subset of four emoji). The results confirmed that emoji meanings according to the PAD model were largely similar between countries (albeit not identical). There were multiple minor significant differences for individual emoji, and where these existed, they often related to the dimension of Arousal, prompting a need for further investigation. Interpersonal differences were examined for gender (men and women), age group (18-45 and 46-69 years old), and frequency of emoji use. Again, significant differences were smaller rather than larger and supported the notion that emoji are generally applicable for multicountry research. However, caution regarding the participants who use emoji infrequently may be warranted. Practical ApplicationThe findings from this research will help academics and practitioners who are interested in using emoji for sensory and consumer research (or are already doing so) with more robust interpretations of their findings. For a set of 12 emoji that provide broad coverage of the valence x arousal emotional space, meanings are provided on the three dimensions of the PAD model. The data is collected in five countries and contributes to increased confidence that emoji meanings are by and large similar in these countries

Consumer Preference Segments for Plant-Based Foods: The Role of Product Category

A survey of willingness to consume (WTC) 5 types of plant-based (PB) food was conducted in USA, Australia, Singapore and India (n = 2494). In addition to WTC, emotional, conceptual and situational use characterizations were obtained. Results showed a number of distinct clusters of consumers with different patterns of WTC for PB foods within different food categories. A large group of consumers did not discriminate among PB foods across the various food categories. Six smaller, but distinct clusters of consumers had specific patterns of WTC across the examined food categories. In general, PB Milk and, to a much lesser extent, PB Cheese had highest WTC ratings. PB Fish had the lowest WTC, and two PB meat products had intermediate WTC. Emotional, conceptual and situational use characterizations exerted significant lifts/penalties on WTC. No penalty or lifts were imparted on WTC by the situational use of ‘moving my diet in a sustainable direction’, whereas uses related to ‘when I want something I like’ and ‘when I want something healthy’ generally imparted WTC lifts across clusters and food categories. The importance of this research for the study of PB foods is its demonstration that consumers are not monolithic in their willingness to consume these foods and that WTC is often a function of the food category of the PB food

Influence of evoked contexts on hedonic product discrimination and sensory characterizations using CATA questions

This research contributes new understanding of the role of consumption context. 12 studies involving 1727 consumers were conducted as central location tests (CLT). Using between-subjects experimental designs, the influence of evoked contexts relative to control condition for hedonic responses and sensory product characterization using check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions was evaluated. Contexts were evoked by asking consumers to think of the last time they ate/drank the focal product category or by imagining a specific consumption situation where product consumption would take place (e.g., breakfast on a weekend morning). In half of the studies, consumers were asked to provide a description of the consumption context they imagined. There was no consistent trend in the results regarding the influence of evoked context of hedonic responses. Effects were seen in a minority of studies, but not consistently showing differences in mean scores or changes in sample discrimination. The type of context that was evoked (last time ate/drank vs. specific situation) did not systematically influence the results, although the use of a description phase during context evocation was detrimental to hedonic sample discrimination. In all the studies where participants were asked to describe the context they imagined, hedonic discrimination was inferior to that achieved under no evoked context. Sensory responses to CATA questions were highly similar under evoked and no evoked context and suggested that product characterisations generated by consumers in a typical CLT provide a good proxy for sensory product experience in contextualised consumption situations.Financial support was obtained from The New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment and Plant & Food Research, Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica (Universidad de la República, Uruguay), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Brazil), Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness (AGL2012-36753-C01) and EU FEDER funds. Staff at The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd. are thanked for help in planning and collection of data

CATA questions for sensory product characterization: Raising awareness of biases

Research into sensory product characterizations by consumers using CATA (check-all-that-apply) methodology is entering the stage where better understanding is required of ways that CATA question implementation influences sensory profiles and product discrimination. With this aim, five studies were conducted. Focusing on strategies that have been suggested as ways to reduce primacy and order bias in CATA data, this research explored the effect of these initiatives on the elicited sensory product profiles and conclusions drawn with regards to sample differences. The use of within-subjects randomization of CATA terms did not significantly affect frequency of use of CATA terms but significantly affected conclusions regarding differences among samples, compared to the evaluation of multiple samples with CATA ballots where terms are presented in the same order. The use of multiple shorter CATA questions defined by sensory modality also yielded results that significantly differed from when single longer CATA questions with terms from multiple sensory modalities were used. CATA question length and the use of single/mixed sensory modalities both appeared to be contributing factors to these differences. ‘Dynamics of sensory perception’, which refers to effects on CATA results arising when CATA terms are assessed in the sensory evaluation process (during/after sample consumption) was confirmed as a source of bias. A key learning from this research was that sensory product characterization and differences among samples are subject to multiple minor biases related to how the question is formulated and that the exact experimental conditions under which CATA data are generated should be reported

Comparison of check-all-that-apply and forced-choice Yes/No question formats for sensory characterisation

The application of check-all-that-apply (CATA) questions for sensory product characterisation is gaining acceptance and popularity. This question format has been reported to be a quick and reliable means of gathering sensory profiles from consumers, concurrently with hedonic assessment. However, a limitation of CATA questions is that they do not encourage deep processing by respondents. Forced-choice questions, where respondents answer ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ for each term, may encourage systematic processing and be useful when consumers undertake sensory profiling tasks. This research compared sensory profiles elicited by consumers using CATA questions or forced-choice Yes/No questions and contribute to ongoing investigations of CATA questions and related question formats with a view to developing guidelines for best practise. Across seven consumer studies with 600+ consumers and multiple product categories, consistent evidence was obtained that forced-choice Yes/No questions are associated with higher term citation frequencies. However, this did not consistently translate into greater product discrimination. Conclusions regarding similarities and differences amongst samples and the stability of sample and term configurations were generally independent of question format (i.e., whether the sensory data were elicited by CATA or forced-choice Yes/No questions). Overall, the comparison of CATA and forcedchoice Yes/No questions for sensory characterisation suggested parity of the two question formats. This extended to consumers’ perceived difficulty and tediousness for completing the test. Regardless of question format, consumers, on average, perceived the tests as easy and not tedious