Consumers’ emotions elicited by food: A systematic review of explicit and implicit methods

The increased interest in consumer and sensory research to focus on total consumer experience when examining the relationship between food and consumer, has led to the development of a number of instruments to capture emotional responses elicited by food, beyond sensory liking. This systematic review identified 70 studies that applied both a food preference measurement (e.g. sensory evaluation, acceptance, liking, hedonic or preference measurements) and a measurement of emotion elicited by food. The narrative synthesis provides an overview of the methods, measurements and instruments that are currently applied in consumer and sensory research to measure emotions in relation to food. Based on how emotional responses are assessed, two types of methods are distinguished: explicit and implicit methods. All studies are categorized into these two methods and structured by the applied measurement with their specific instrument. The results confirm the dominance of explicit methods to investigate emotional responses in relation to food. Although implicit measurements are only limitedly applied in consumer and sensory research, the increase and evolution of (often interdisciplinary) techniques have created new, promising approaches to capture emotional responses.