Exploring influencing factors in shape-taste crossmodal correspondences with static and dynamic shapes

Abstract

In recent years, many studies have been done, exploring factors in crossmodal correspondences between shape and taste. Building on this and an internship for TNO earlier this year, two online experiments have been done, examining these factors in crossmodal correspondence with both static and dynamic shapes. In experiment 1, a redesigned version of the experiment done in the internship, participants chose shape attributes that they associated most with the expected taste of four given food images. Analysis indicated that sweet expected tastes were associated with roundness, symmetry and a low number of elements in shapes. A high taste intensity was indicated to be associated to a higher number of elements in shapes, but only for sour foods. This confirms findings in earlier research linking sweetness to roundness and symmetry and provides insight in the link between taste intensity and shape complexity, as well as highlighting the importance of considering choices in instructing participants. In a second experiment, a possibe link between dynamic water patterns and taste was examined. Participants chose either ’sweet’ or ’sour’ for each of 30 dynamic textures, which had been classified with 7 descriptors (calmness, pleasure, arousal, interest, dominance, motion complexity and motion regularity). Analysis did not show any moderate correlations between the chosen taste and these 7 descriptors, giving evidence of an absence of a link between taste and dynamic textures.