Evaluative conditioning of sweet meaning using sweet and non-sweet food names as unconditioned stimuli and new words as conditioned stimuli

While most previous studies of evaluative conditioning have examined changes in emotional word meaning, few studies have examined the conditioning of gustatory word meaning. This study investigated whether the sweet taste meanings associated with real food names are linked with nonsense words. Participants completed the first evaluation phase, a conditioning phase, and the second evaluation phase in an experiment pairing Japanese nonsense words with Japanese sweet and non-sweet food names collected in a preceding survey. In both evaluation phases, they rated the sweet taste meaning, familiarity, valence, and arousal associated with nonsense words. The results revealed that nonsense words combined with sweet food names induced a sweeter taste meaning than did those combined with non-sweet food names after the conditioning phase. Despite controlling for familiarity, valence, and arousal across conditions, nonsense words paired with non-sweet food names were rated as more exciting than those paired with sweet food names. Familiarity and valence ratings were higher after the conditioning than before in both conditions. These results suggest that evaluative conditioning using sweet food names can promote sweet meanings and preferences of new food product names.