Effect of Color on Judgments of Food Aroma and Flavour Intensity in Young and Elderly Adults

The hypothesis was tested that subjects' judgments of food aroma and flavour strength will be increasingly influenced by food color as the chemosensory differences between foods become less apparent. Elderly (n = 24) and young (n = 22) adults were presented with pairs of food samples and instructed to indicate which sample had the more intense aroma or flavor. The chemosensory discriminations varied in difficulty, and the color of the food pairs was also manipulated so that either they were similarly colored, or the color strength differed so that it was either positively or inversely correlated with flavour strength. Overall, the results failed to support the hypothesis that color alters the perceived intensity of the food aroma or flavor. There was a weak trend toward a greater number of errors among sample pairs that varied in color, especially when color strength was inversely related to flavor strength. Elderly and young adult groups did not differ in chemosensory ability or in their responses to food color differences, although the elderly adults were significantly more certain of the accuracy of their chemosensory judgments.