Tasty words: Using frame semantics to enhance consumer liking of potato chips and apples

Abstract

Previous research indicates that speakers of American English chiefly use crispy when referring to dry foods and crunchy when referring to wet foods, suggesting that these near-synonyms have different semantic frames. The present study is the first to address how speakers of American English process crispy and crunchy by investigating whether foods with frame-semantically (in)congruent food labels influence thoughts about and taste perception of foods. Taste tests with dry and wet foods labeled (in)congruently with regards to their water content showed that while thoughts remained unaffected, the frame-semantically incongruent context produced significantly higher taste ratings than the frame-semantically congruent context. Further research is necessary to explain whether and to what extent these findings can be generalized to other foods and near-synonyms.