Crosslinguistic Differences in Food Labels Do Not Yield Differences in Taste Perception

Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us

Y

20

Foreign Countries; Language Usage; Classification; Language Processing; Naming; Food; College Students; Sensory Experience; Bilingualism; English; Norwegian; Perception

10.1111/lang.12641

0023-8333
1467-9922

Research has shown that speakers of different languages may differ in their cognitive and perceptual processing of reality. A common denominator of this line of investigation has been its reliance on the sensory domain of vision. The aim of our study was to extend the scope to a new sense-taste. Using as a starting point crosslinguistic differences in the category boundaries of edible bulbs, we examined whether monolingual speakers of English and bilingual speakers of Norwegian and English were influenced by language-specific categories during tasting. The results showed no evidence of such effects, not even for the Norwegian participants in an entirely Norwegian context. This suggests that crosslinguistic differences in visual perception do not readily generalize to the domain of taste. We discuss the findings in terms of predictive processing, with particular reference to trigeminal stimulation (a central tasting component) and the interplay between chemosensory signals and top-down linguistic modulation.

As Provided

2024

EJ1427274