Providing Information about a Flavor to Preschoolers: Effects on Liking and Memory for Having Tasted It

Chem. Senses 32: 505–513, 2007 doi:10.1093/chemse/bjm019 Advance Access publication May 17, 2007 Providing Information about a Flavor to Preschoolers: Effects on Liking and Memory for Having Tasted It Julie C. Lumeng1,2 and Tiffany M. Cardinal2 1 Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA and 2Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA Correspondence to be sent to: Julie C. Lumeng, Center for Human Growth and Development, 10th Floor, 300 North Ingalls Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0406, USA. e-mail: Abstract This study sought to determine if providing affectively positive information about a flavor to preschool-aged children during tasting will increase recognition of and liking for the flavor and if the recognition and liking are associated. Forty-six 3- to 6-year-old children tasted 10 flavors: 5 presented with affectively positive information and 5 without. The 10 flavors were then presented again interspersed with 10 distracter flavors. Children reported whether they had tasted the flavor previously and provided hedonic ratings for each flavor. Children’s ability to remember having tasted a flavor was greater when the flavor was presented with affectively positive information than without in children throughout the age range of 3–6 years. In children younger than 4.5 years, the provision of information had no effect on hedonic rating, whereas in older children, the provision of information was associated with greater hedonic ratings. We conclude that providing affectively positive information to children about a flavor can increase their ability to recognize the flavor as previously tasted and increases hedonic rating of the flavor in children older than 4.5 years. Key words: child development, food preferences, memory Introduction Greater dietary variety, particularly with regard to whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, is a main focus of federal dietary guidelines (Johnson and Kennedy 2000). ‘‘Picky eating’’ is a common parental concern (Reau et al. 1996; Galloway et al. 2003; Carruth et al. 2004) and perhaps with good reason: Dietary variety in early childhood seems to predict dietary variety into later childhood and adulthood (Skinner et al. 2002; Nicklaus et al. 2005). Increasing the variety of foods that preschool-aged children will eat has therefore been the focus of a number of broadly based nutrition education programs (Knai et al. 2006). Food preference formation begins very early; exposure to flavors in the mother’s diet both prenatally and via breast milk impacts future flavor preferences (Mennella et al. 2001) and exposure to different formula flavors in infancy impacts sour and bitter preference in later childhood (Mennella and Beauchamp 2002). There may also be innate differences in bitter taste perception that impact children’s vegetable consumption (Keller et al. 2002; Bell and Tepper 2006). Beyond these biological predispositions and generally inadvertent environmental exposures, there are few methods by which caregivers report consciously attempting to increase a child’s preference for target foods (Casey and Rozin 1989; Hendy and Raudenbush 2000). These essentially include variations on repeated exposure (Birch and Marlin 1982; Birch et al. 1987; Wardle et al. 2003; Liem and deGraaf 2004), modeling (Duncker 1938; Harper and Sanders 1975; Birch 1980; Hendy and Raudenbush 2000; Addessi et al. 2005), reward (Birch et al. 1980; Hendy et al. 2005), pairing liked with disliked flavors (Pilner and Stallberg-White 2000; Havermans and Jansen 2007), and structured teaching. Implementing most of these methods is relatively straightforward. Serving food to children repeatedly and requiring that they sample a bite each time accomplishes repeated exposure. Having adults, peers, or admired figures eat a target food in front of the child accomplishes modeling. Providing a child a food with positive social attention serves to increase liking, and adding a sweet sauce (e.g., ketchup) pairs flavors effectively. It is less clear, however, how to most effectively implement structured teaching about food to shape children’s food preferences. Structured teaching about food occurs through schools, by parents and caregivers, and via television. Television ª The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: 506 J.C. Lumeng and T.M. Cardinal commercials effectively shape children’s food preferences (typically by increasing liking for unhealthy foods) (Borzekowski and Robinson 2001). Exactly how caregiver teaching about food operates on a child’s preference for a food or flavor has not, to our knowledge, been investigated. There are 2 potential mechanisms by which the pairing of affectively positive information with a flavor may lead to increased liking for it. The first is simple classical conditioning, a potential contributor to the development of food likes and dislikes, which has been reviewed in detail elsewhere (Rozin and Zellner 1985). The second is that providing children information about a flavor allows it to be more ‘‘easily processed,’’ making it seem more familiar and thereby increasing liking for it. Repeated exposure leads to increased liking for food (Birch and Marlin 1982; Birch et al. 1987; Liem and deGraaf 2004), though it is less well understood if the increased liking that results from repeated exposure is facilitated by enhancing memory for having tasted the food. As was first posited by Craik and Lockhart (Craik and Lockhart 1972), processing information at a deeper level seems to allow enhanced memory for the information compared with when it is processed at a ‘‘superficial’’ or ‘‘sensory’’ level alone. As reviewed in their seminal paper (Craik and Lockhart 1972), stimuli are thought to be processed rapidly at a number of different levels. The preliminary stages involve the analysis of angles, brightness, pitch, and, we propose in the present case, taste. Later stages of stimulus processing seek to ‘‘match the stimulus against stored abstractions from past learning’’ and are referred to as occurring at a greater ‘‘depth of processing’’ (Craik and Lockhart 1972). Deeper processing, which equates to easier processing, is theorized to lead to a greater sense of familiarity and, as a result, greater liking. When pairing a flavor with affectively positive information, increased liking could therefore be a result of either 1) classical conditioning or 2) facilitation of development of memory (and thereby sense of familiarity and liking) through increased ease of processing. If the pairing of the flavor with affectively positive information is linked to increased liking, but not increased memory, we would propose that this suggests that the mechanism is primarily classical conditioning. If the pairing of the flavor with affectively positive information is linked with both increased (...truncated)