Don't judge new foods by their appearance! How visual and oral sensory cues affect sensory perception and liking of novel, heterogeneous foods

The acceptance of novel foods is determined by factors pertaining to both products and consumers. From a product perspective, parameters as visual appearance, texture, and flavour are of primary importance to establish the consumer sensory perception and hedonic response. Such response is, however, mediated by other consumer physiological and psychological factors as well as socially and culturally learned expectations. To design successful novel food products, the dynamic interrelationship between these complementary aspects of food consumption should be taken into consideration.The introduction of particles into a product is a common strategy used to create new food products. The perception of a novel composite food with dispersed particles involves both cues that are stimulated prior (exteroceptive; e.g. product visual appearance) and during consumption (interoceptive; e.g. somatosensory and gustatory perception). It is not known how heterogeneity by addition of particles influences expectation, sensory perception and liking. In this study, we focussed on processed cheese, which is known for itshomogeneous texture.