Melina Mueller¹ (), Isabel Gauthier¹; ¹Vanderbilt University

Color can influence experiences with food. The presence of color moderates the relationship between food recognition ability and affective responses to food. Here we investigated how specific color channels influence food recognition, as a function of two traits reflecting attitudes towards food: food neophobia (FN, fear of new foods) and food disgust (FD, aversion to harmful or offensive foods). We randomly assigned participants to perform food recognition in three color conditions: normal color, red-green filtered, or blue-yellow filtered. We measured FN and FD in non-colorblind adults (n = 562), followed by a food oddball recognition task. FN was negatively correlated with food recognition, with a stronger effect for filtered images (red-green: r = -.311, blue-yellow: r = -.329) compared to normal images (r = -.124; z = 2.29, p = .02). FD negatively impacted food recognition when red-green information was absent (r = -.413) compared to normal color (r = -.043; z = 3.61, p < .001) or blue-yellow filtered images (r = -.156; z = -2.49, p = .01). Color channels influence food recognition performance on a task without explicit affective judgment. FN is associated with poor food recognition ability regardless of color content, possibly because FN limits perceptual experiences with food. With high FN, unusual colors may reduce familiarity, further impairing recognition. In contrast, FD does not limit food recognition for foods in normal color. Those with high FD performed most poorly when recognizing food images lacking red-green information. This could be due to an arousal effect for foods perceived as disgusting or, food recognition in those with high FD may rely on red-green information more than for those with low FD. Color did not significantly impact performance for those with low FN and FD, suggesting that color elicits stronger affective responses for those with high trait levels.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the David K. Wilson Chair Research Fund (Vanderbilt University).