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Sensory-specific satiety and repeated exposure to novel snack foods : short- and long-term changes in food pleasantness

Sensory-specific satiety (SSS) is a significantly greater pleasantness decline for a consumed (Eaten) food, than foods that are tasted but not consumed (Uneaten). SSS occurs during consumption, reaches optimal magnitude immediately afterwards, and returns to baseline within two to three hours. The phenomenon is dependent on the sensory properties, rather than the energy or macronutrient content of the food. To the extent that an Uneaten food shares similar sensory properties with the Eaten food, the Uneaten food may be subject to pleasantness decline: a transfer effect. Repeated exposure to a food stimulus may alter liking in the long-term, through mere exposure, monotony, and dietary learning paradigms resulting in an association between the novel target food and either a known food stimulus, or a consequence of consumption. Novel foods are more susceptible to these effects than familiar foods, for which learned associations may have already formed. Repeated consumption alone does not modulate SSS, but to date such studies have not tested novel foods. Through six experiments this research explores the influences of long-term pleasantness changes of novel foods and the number and type of Uneaten foods present during SSS testing, on the magnitude of SSS for snack foods. While no evidence of mere exposure or dietary learning was found, and in some instances experiments failed to induce SSS, these negative results are likely due to methodological, and sometimes procedural issues in the design and conduct of experimental testing. Findings revealed SSS to be vulnerable to a number of procedural and methodological factors, such as: portion size; baseline novelty and pleasantness ratings; hunger; perceived ambiguity of measurement scales; and expectations raised by the type and number of Uneaten foods present during testing.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:561252
Date January 2012
CreatorsRobins-Hobden, Sarah Louise
PublisherUniversity of Sussex
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/42959/

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