11/6/25 Melina Mueller: Color Shapes the Relationship Between Affective Traits and Food Recognition
CCN brown bag
Graduate Student
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Time: 12:10- 1:00pm
Location: 316 Wilson Hall
Color Shapes the Relationship Between Affective Traits and Food Recognition
Each of us experiences food in perceptually rich and varied ways. Our lab became interested in whether individual differences in experience with food predict the ability to recognize different foods. We found that people with the tendency to avoid unfamiliar foods, known as Food Neophobia, performed worse on food recognition tasks than those without it. However, this relationship was only present when foods were shown in color. When images were shown in grayscale, the link between Food Neophobia and food recognition disappeared. These findings suggest that color may trigger affective responses that influence judgements about food. In the current study, we investigated whether removing specific color cues might amplify or suppress the influence of affective traits on food recognition ability. To test this, 563 participants were randomly assigned to one of three color-filter conditions during a food recognition task. In one condition, we selectively removed red-green information from food images. In another condition, we selectively removed blue-yellow information from food images. In the third condition, food images were unmanipulated. We measured two affective traits: the tendency to be grossed out by food (Food Disgust) and Food Neophobia. Filtering images amplified the relationship between affective responses and food recognition ability. Food Disgust predicted lower recognition when red-green information was removed, while Food Neophobia predicted lower accuracy in the blue-yellow condition. For Food Disgust, red-green cues may support judgments of freshness or contamination. In contrast, removing blue-yellow information may increase perceived novelty, affecting those with Food Neophobia. Our work reveals that color and affect interact to predict our ability to recognize food.