Development of new child-friendly methods to measure food-evoked emotions holistically

Los estudios 5 y 6 pertenecientes al capítulo 4 están sujetos a confidencialidad por la autora.Before conducting a child-centered study, the selection of the methodology to use is of special importance since it should be adapted to their cognitive, physical, and social stage of development. On this regard, researchers are force to reconsider the existing methodologies on consumer science, mainly design for adults, or to develop new ones.It is thought that the measure of emotions could contribute the understanding of consumer,s preferences and food choices. Since emotions have a multicomponent character, the application of methodologies that measure each component of the emotion are necessary to reach a holistic perspective. This dissertation aimed to design new child-friendly methodologies appropriate to measure food-evoked emotions holistically. To achieve this goal an emoji-based tool was developed and its applicability in food studies was validated to examine the cognitive inherent of emotion. A combined methodology was also designed to apply automatic facial coding and the measure of skin conductance response (SCR) to disentangle the behavioural and physiological components of emotion. On this regard, the applicability of facial coding on the evaluation of spontaneous facial expressions elicited by food stimuli was examined. After, a methodological approach was developed to overcome some limitations frequently associated with the use of facial coding and SCR and their applicability in a broad range of sensory tasks was tested

Yuck, This Biscuit Looks Lumpy! Neophobic Levels and Cultural Differences Drive Children’s Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) Descriptions and Preferences for High-Fibre Biscuits

Food neophobia influences food choice in school-aged children. However, little is known about how children with different degrees of food neophobia perceive food and to what extent different sensory attributes drive their liking. This paper explores liking and sensory perception of fibre-rich biscuits in school-aged children (n = 509, age 9–12 years) with different degrees of food neophobia and from five different European countries (Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom). Children tasted and rated their liking of eight commercial biscuits and performed a Check-All-That-Apply task to describe the samples and further completed a Food Neophobia Scale. Children with a higher degree of neophobia displayed a lower liking for all tasted biscuits (p < 0.001). Cross-cultural differences in liking also appeared (p < 0.001). A negative correlation was found between degree of neophobia and the number of CATA-terms used to describe the samples (r = −0.116, p = 0.009). Penalty analysis showed that degree of food neophobia also affected drivers of biscuit liking, where particularly appearance terms were drivers of disliking for neophobic children. Cross-cultural differences in drivers of liking and disliking were particularly salient for texture attributes. Further research should explore if optimizing appearance attributes could be a way to increase liking of fibre-rich foods in neophobic children

Yuck, This Biscuit Looks Lumpy! Neophobic Levels and Cultural Differences Drive Children's Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) Descriptions and Preferences for High-Fibre Biscuits

Food neophobia influences food choice in school-aged children. However, little is known about how children with different degrees of food neophobia perceive food and to what extent different sensory attributes drive their liking. This paper explores liking and sensory perception of fibre-rich biscuits in school-aged children (n = 509, age 9-12 years) with different degrees of food neophobia and from five different European countries (Finland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom). Children tasted and rated their liking of eight commercial biscuits and performed a Check-All-That-Apply task to describe the samples and further completed a Food Neophobia Scale. Children with a higher degree of neophobia displayed a lower liking for all tasted biscuits (p < 0.001). Cross-cultural differences in liking also appeared (p < 0.001). A negative correlation was found between degree of neophobia and the number of CATA-terms used to describe the samples (r = -0.116, p = 0.009). Penalty analysis showed that degree of food neophobia also affected drivers of biscuit liking, where particularly appearance terms were drivers of disliking for neophobic children. Cross-cultural differences in drivers of liking and disliking were particularly salient for texture attributes. Further research should explore if optimizing appearance attributes could be a way to increase liking of fibre-rich foods in neophobic children