Effect of Age and Food Novelty on Food Memory

The influence of age of the consumer and food novelty on incidentally learned food memory was investigated by providing a meal containing novel and familiar target items under the pretense of a study on hunger feelings to 34 young and 36 older participants in France and to 24 young and 20 older participants in Denmark and testing them a day later on recognition of the targets among a set of distractors that were variations of the target made by adding or subtracting taste (sour or sweet) or aroma (orange or red berry flavor). Memory was also tested by asking participants to indicate whether the target and the distractors were equal to or less or more intense than the remembered target in sourness sweetness and aroma. The results showed that when novelty is defined as whether people know or not a given product, it has a strong influence on memory performance, but that age did not, the elderly performing just as well as the young. The change in the distractors was more readily detected with familiar than with novel targets where the participants were still confused by the target itself. Special attention is given to the influence of the incidental learning paradigm on the outcome and to the ways in which it differs from traditional recognition experiments

Logos on environmental sustainability in wine production: how do Burgundy consumers perceive them?

Logos on environmental sustainability could consist of an effective strategy to provide consumers accurate, understandable and trustable information in order to encourage them to buy environmentally sustainable wine. However, the large number of different logos on environmental sustainability available in the market raises the question of whether their associated messages are successfully conveyed to consumers. In this context, the aim of the present exploratory study was to investigate how Burgundy wine consumers perceive a series of logos on environmental sustainability in wine production. Fourteen logos available in the French market were selected: three logos being specific to wine and eleven non-specific to wine. The logos were presented to 127 wine consumers from Dijon area (France) following an incomplete balanced block design. For each logo, participants had to answer the question: ?What does a bottle of wine with this logo suggest you?? Responses were qualitatively analyzed and grouped into different categories. Chi-square test and Correspondence analysis were used to identify the relationship among logos and categories. Results showed large differences in how consumers perceived the logos. Logos that most successfully conveyed their messages were Biodyvin, the ancient European AB and the French AB organic logos, which were strongly associated to organic wine. Most logos did not communicate a message related to environmental sustainability, which reaffirms the need to provide consumers with adequate information on environmental sustainability, and indicate the need for further research on this subject

Identifying motives underlying wine purchase decisions: Results from an exploratory free listing task with Burgundy wine consumers.

To better understand consumer decision making processes while purchasing wine it is important to identify which attributes consumers actually rely on and how they perceive and weight them in order to reach a final decision.The aims of the present work were to identify motives underlying wine purchase decisions and to identify consumer segments with different drivers of wine purchase. One hundred and twenty seven Burgundy wine consumers were asked to complete a free listing task. Relevance of each category of elicited terms was estimated by Smith's and Cognitive saliency indices. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on individual Smith's saliency indices. In the free listing task, respondents listed an average of 5.6 terms, the minimum number per participant being 2and the maximum 11. The four categories with the highest saliency indices were Price, Production region, Wine type and Production year. Two consumer segments with different motives underlying their wine purchase decisions were identified. Cluster 1, mainly composed of young consumers, elicited Price, Production region, Food and wine pairing and Consumption context as the most salient motives, while Cluster 2, composed of older consumers, mentioned Production region, Price, Grape variety and Wine type as the most salient ones

Logos indicating environmental sustainability in wine production: an exploratory study on how do Burgundy wine consumers perceive them.

[possui errata, v. 66, dez. 2014, p. 515]

When Flexibility Is Stable: Implicit Long-Term Shaping of Olfactory Preferences

Preferences are traditionally assumed to be stable. However, empirical evidence such as preference modulation following choices calls this assumption into question. The evolution of such postchoice preference over long time spans, even when choices have been explicitly forgotten, has so far not been studied. In two experiments, we investigated this question by using a variant of the free choice paradigm: In a first session, participants evaluated the pleasantness of a number of odors. We then formed pairs of similarly rated odors, and asked participants to choose their favorite, for each pair. Participants were then presented with all odors again, and asked for another pleasantness rating. In a second session 1 week later, a third pleasantness rating was obtained, and participants were again asked to choose between the same options. Results suggested postchoice preference modulation immediately and 1 week after choice for both chosen and rejected options, even when choices were not explicitly remembered. A third experiment, using another paradigm, confirmed that choice can have a modulatory impact on preferences, and that this modulation can be long-lasting. Taken together, these findings suggest that although preferences appear to be flexible because they are modulated by choices, this modulation also appears to be stable over time and even without explicit recollection of the choice. These results bring a new argument to the idea that postchoice preference modulation could rely on implicit mechanisms, and are consistent with the recent proposal that cognitive dissonance reduction could to some extent be implicit

Learning to Eat Vegetables in Early Life: The Role of Timing, Age and Individual Eating Traits

Vegetable intake is generally low among children, who appear to be especially fussy during the pre-school years. Repeated exposure is known to enhance intake of a novel vegetable in early life but individual differences in response to familiarisation have emerged from recent studies. In order to understand the factors which predict different responses to repeated exposure, data from the same experiment conducted in three groups of children from three countries (n = 332) aged 4–38 m (18.9±9.9 m) were combined and modelled. During the intervention period each child was given between 5 and 10 exposures to a novel vegetable (artichoke puree) in one of three versions (basic, sweet or added energy). Intake of basic artichoke puree was measured both before and after the exposure period. Overall, younger children consumed more artichoke than older children. Four distinct patterns of eating behaviour during the exposure period were defined. Most children were “learners” (40%) who increased intake over time. 21% consumed more than 75% of what was offered each time and were labelled “plate-clearers”. 16% were considered “non-eaters” eating less than 10 g by the 5th exposure and the remainder were classified as “others” (23%) since their pattern was highly variable. Age was a significant predictor of eating pattern, with older pre-school children more likely to be non-eaters. Plate-clearers had higher enjoyment of food and lower satiety responsiveness than non-eaters who scored highest on food fussiness. Children in the added energy condition showed the smallest change in intake over time, compared to those in the basic or sweetened artichoke condition. Clearly whilst repeated exposure familiarises children with a novel food, alternative strategies that focus on encouraging initial tastes of the target food might be needed for the fussier and older pre-school children

Brain Potentials Highlight Stronger Implicit Food Memory for Taste than Health and Context Associations

Increasingly consumption of healthy foods is advised to improve population health. Reasons people give for choosing one food over another suggest that non-sensory features like health aspects are appreciated as of lower importance than taste. However, many food choices are made in the absence of the actual perception of a food's sensory properties, and therefore highly rely on previous experiences of similar consumptions stored in memory. In this study we assessed the differential strength of food associations implicitly stored in memory, using an associative priming paradigm. Participants (N = 30) were exposed to a forced-choice picture-categorization task, in which the food or non-food target images were primed with either non-sensory or sensory related words. We observed a smaller N400 amplitude at the parietal electrodes when categorizing food as compared to non-food images. While this effect was enhanced by the presentation of a food-related word prime during food trials, the primes had no effect in the non-food trials. More specifically, we found that sensory associations are stronger implicitly represented in memory as compared to non-sensory associations. Thus, this study highlights the neuronal mechanisms underlying previous observations that sensory associations are important features of food memory, and therefore a primary motive in food choice.</p

Couverture de serre : mesure de la transparence thermique des matériaux

In order to calculate the losses of a greenhouse it is necessary to characterise the cladding material. Usually, the cladding material is characterised by the level of its transparency in the infrared range. But, other considerations need to be taken in account, such as losses by convection, leaks, condensation, etc... This paper presents a global method for the calculation "in situ" for an overall loss coefficient using external hot boxes, and its theorical value calculated by mean of a software program, according to standards conditions. / La consommation thermique d'une serre pour son chauffage dépend essentiellement de sa couverture et de son comportement sous un climat extérieur donné. De nombreux films plastiques aux propriétés mal connues sont apparus sur le marché. Il devient alors nécessaire de caractériser les matériaux de couverture par un coefficient de déperdition, de déceler leurs différences et de pouvoir les classer en fonction des valeurs de ce coefficient, dit de transparence thermique. L'objectif de cette étude est donc de mesurer "in situ" rapidement et simplement la transparence thermique des matériaux de couverture, d'apprécier réellement leurs performances et d'effectuer ultérieurement des calculs de consommation et de coûts économiques. La mesure de la transparence s'effectue : - dans le rayonnement visible (PAR), l'objectif est alors d'assurer une photosynthèse efficace des végétaux, et dans le rayonnement infrarouge pour caractériser l'effet de serre et limiter les déperditions nocturnes