Ooh, That's Sour: an Investigation of the Role of Sour Taste and Color Saturation in Consumer Temptation Avoidance

This paper draws on the theory of embodied cognition to argue that sensory imagery and consumer recall of past experiences of sour tastes inspire sour taste perceptions that trigger facial muscle activation, which in turn leads to temptation avoidance. Across four experiments, we show that physical action need not be performed to elicit temptation avoidance. Moreover, our findings show that the effects of visual gustatory imagery are more pronounced when presented against a visual red background low on color saturation. Interestingly, they are not significant in the presence of a high color saturation background. We also discuss the implications of these findings for sensory marketing, alternative consumer strategies to avoid temptation, and visual brand management in the consumer experience economy.