TY - JOUR
T1 - Round faces are associated with sweet foods
T2 - The role of crossmodal correspondence in social perception
AU - Motoki, Kosuke
AU - Saito, Toshiki
AU - Nouchi, Rui
AU - Kawashima, Ryuta
AU - Sugiura, Motoaki
N1 - Funding Information:
This project was funded in part by the Cornell University College Scholar Program. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17J00389 (K.M.), KAKENHI Grant Number 16H01873 from MEXT (M.S.), and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area: 17H06046) (R.N.).
Funding Information:
Funding: This project was funded in part by the Cornell University College Scholar Program. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17J00389 (K.M.), KAKENHI Grant Number 16H01873 from MEXT (M.S.), and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area: 17H06046) (R.N.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - In retail settings, social perception of other peoples' preferences is fundamental to successful interpersonal interactions (e.g., product recommendations, gift-giving). This type of perception must be made with little information, very often based solely on facial cues. Although people are capable of accurately predicting others' preferences from facial cues, we do not yet know how such inferences are made by crossmodal correspondence (arbitrary sensory associations) between facial cues and inferred attributes. The crossmodal correspondence literature implies the existence of sensory associations between shapes and tastes, and people consistently match roundness and angularity to sweet and sour foods, respectively. Given that peoples' faces have dimensions characterized by roundness and angularity, it may be plausible that people infer others' preferences by relying on the correspondence between facial roundness and taste. Based on a crossmodal correspondence framework, this study aimed to reveal the role of shape-taste correspondences in social perception. We investigated whether Japanese participants infer others' taste (sweet/sour) preferences based on facial shapes (roundness/angularity). The results showed that participants reliably inferred that round-faced (vs. angular-faced) individuals preferred sweet foods (Study 1). Round-faced individuals and sweet foods were well matched, and the matching mediated the inference of other person's preferences (Study 2). An association between facial roundness and inference of sweet taste preferences was observed in more natural faces, and perceived obesity mediated this association (Study 3). These findings advance the applicability of crossmodal correspondences in social perception, and imply the pervasiveness of prejudicial bias in the marketplace.
AB - In retail settings, social perception of other peoples' preferences is fundamental to successful interpersonal interactions (e.g., product recommendations, gift-giving). This type of perception must be made with little information, very often based solely on facial cues. Although people are capable of accurately predicting others' preferences from facial cues, we do not yet know how such inferences are made by crossmodal correspondence (arbitrary sensory associations) between facial cues and inferred attributes. The crossmodal correspondence literature implies the existence of sensory associations between shapes and tastes, and people consistently match roundness and angularity to sweet and sour foods, respectively. Given that peoples' faces have dimensions characterized by roundness and angularity, it may be plausible that people infer others' preferences by relying on the correspondence between facial roundness and taste. Based on a crossmodal correspondence framework, this study aimed to reveal the role of shape-taste correspondences in social perception. We investigated whether Japanese participants infer others' taste (sweet/sour) preferences based on facial shapes (roundness/angularity). The results showed that participants reliably inferred that round-faced (vs. angular-faced) individuals preferred sweet foods (Study 1). Round-faced individuals and sweet foods were well matched, and the matching mediated the inference of other person's preferences (Study 2). An association between facial roundness and inference of sweet taste preferences was observed in more natural faces, and perceived obesity mediated this association (Study 3). These findings advance the applicability of crossmodal correspondences in social perception, and imply the pervasiveness of prejudicial bias in the marketplace.
KW - Crossmodal correspondence
KW - Facial shapes
KW - Social judgment
KW - Sour
KW - Sweet
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U2 - 10.3390/foods8030103
DO - 10.3390/foods8030103
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063285427
VL - 8
JO - Foods
JF - Foods
SN - 2304-8158
IS - 3
M1 - 103
ER -