颜色和味觉间的联系

A study from Penn State （The Pennsylvania State University） confirms long-standing research into the relationship between color and taste. What consumers see when they eat matters as much—if not more—than what they taste.

宾夕法尼亚州立大学的一项研究证实了长期以来探索的颜色和味觉之间的联系。消费者在吃东西时看到的东西与他们品尝到的味道同样重要，甚至更为重要。

Researchers gave participants different colors of liquid with different tastes—including bitter， sweet， savory and sour. Participants then tried clear liquids with the same taste profiles， and they were asked to associate them with a color.

研究人员给参与者提供不同颜色、不同味道的液体，包括苦的、甜的、咸的和酸的。 然后，参与者尝试了具有相同味道的透明液体，并被要求将这些液体与某种颜色联系起来。

Researchers found these associations are easy to learn， and ones that are currently common—like red for sweet or yellow for sour—may not be set in stone. Six in ten study participants learned new color-flavor pairings after four exposures.

研究人員发现，这些联系很容易掌握，目前比较常见的联系——比如红色代表甜，黄色代表酸——可能不会一成不变。研究中10个参与者就有6个人在四次接触后学会了新的颜色与味道的搭配。

Dive Insight

详 情

What consumers expect when they see a food primes the palate to taste certain flavors. The strong associations between color and flavor are well established in the scientific community. Research on the subject dates back to the 1970s. For example， consumers expect yellow foods to be sour or citrusy.

当消费者看到一种食物时，他们所期望的是让他们的味蕾尝到某种味道。颜色和味道之间的强烈联系在科学界已经得到了很好的证实。而关于这个问题的研究可以追溯到20世纪70年代。比如消费者看到黄色食品时会期望它是酸的或柑橘味的。

Branding， packaging and color quality of the product itself play a big part in creating and maintaining expectations. Food brands have long understood this and worked to establish standards. In some cases， color can overpower other senses and convince people they taste flavors that arent there.

产品的品牌、包装和颜色质量本身在创造和维持期望方面发挥着重要作用。食品商早就了解这一点，并努力建立标准。在某些情况下，颜色可以压倒其他感觉并让人们以为他们尝到了不一样的味道。

The Penn State researchers set out to test if they could teach color-taste correlations， and found the linkages could be more flexible than many thought in some cases.

宾夕法尼亚州立大学的研究人员开始测试他们是否可以传授颜色和味觉的相关性，并发现这种相关性在某些情况下比许多人想象的更加灵活。

Although it may be possible to radically alter food colors， it may not be advisable. According to this study， 40% of consumers would be left behind， stuck on familiar patterns. Consumers tend to want to know what theyre in for when they select a product—and color is a big part of that. While its interesting that consumer expectations for colors could shift， the risk of unexpected colors is high for any company. Many food brands rely on visual expectations to pull customers into unfamiliar products.

尽管有可能从根本上改变食物的颜色，但这也是不可取的。根据这项研究，40% 的消费者会落后并坚持他们熟悉的模式。消费者在选择产品时往往想知道自己喜欢什么，而颜色是其中很重要的一个因素。然而有趣的是，消费者对颜色的期望往往会发生变化，对于任何公司来说，采用意想不到的颜色，风险是很高的。许多食品商依靠视觉预期来吸引顾客购买他们不熟悉的产品。

While todays consumer has expectations for flavors of items with different colors， he also has expectations that natural ingredients be used. While these ingredients are often preferable， they present a challenge.

尽管今天的消费者对不同颜色的食品的味道有所期待，但人们更希望使用天然的原材料。虽然这些天然的材料是更可取的选项，但它们也意味着挑战。

Word Study

prime /pra?m/ v. 使（某人）做好准备

adj. 主要的;首要的

She was ready and primed for action.

The care of the environment is of prime importance.

alter /'??lt?（r）/ v. （使）改变，更改

He had altered so much I scarcely recognized him.

visual /'v??u?l/ adj. 视力的;视觉的

I have a very good visual memory.