TITLE:
Eating with Familiar Friends Decreases the Electrical Taste Threshold
AUTHORS:
Shiho Tsuchida, Genki Sakauchi, Momoko Asada, Naoto Sato, Kasumi Suzuki, Misaki Kaiwa, Kenichi Shibuya, Hiromi Inaba
KEYWORDS:
Co-Eating, Taste Threshold, Familiar Person, Tastiness, Physiological Changes
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science,
Vol.9 No.3,
March
25,
2019
ABSTRACT: Communal eating reportedly induces changes in food-related behaviors such as increased consumption and alleviation of indefinite complaints. Here, we examined the influence of intimacy with co-eaters on the palatability of the food and the physiological taste thresholds. The study was a single-blind crossover trial with 16 healthy women aged 18 - 19 years (two close friends × 8) as participants. We examined the effect of four preset conditions with regard to taste (condition 1 = tasting alone; condition 2 = tasting with a friend; condition 3 = tasting with three unfamiliar individuals; condition 4 = tasting with a friend and two unfamiliar individuals). Electrical taste thresholds were measured pre-and post-eating. The subjective evaluation of taste did not show any significant difference between the four conditions (p > 0.05). However, the electrical taste threshold significantly decreased when eating with close friends (p