Sensory basis of refreshing perception: role of psychophysiological factors and food experience.

Refreshing is a term often used to characterize certain types of foods and beverages. This review first explores what is known from sensory and consumer studies on refreshing perception in relation to food and beverage consumption. It then presents and discusses the similarities between sensory characteristics perceived as refreshing with those perceived during and after drinking water. In general, refreshing drinks and beverages seem to help alleviate symptoms experienced during water deprivation, including thirst, mouth dryness and mental fatigue. The role that learning may have in the construction of refreshing perception during each food experience is also discussed. The review showed that a refreshing value (perceived or expected) tends to be associated with foods sharing some characteristics with water in terms of their sensory profile (clear, cold, liquid); and that food experiences may induce associative learning about perceptions of existing or new products marketed as refreshing.

The effects of sensory impairments on product experience and personal well-being.

To determine the roles that the sensory modalities play in user product interactions, one modality was blocked during the execution of eight simple tasks. Participants reported how they experienced the products and how they felt during the experiment. Blocking vision resulted in the largest loss of functional information, increased task difficulty and task duration, and fostered dependency. On the other hand, the other senses were used more and product experiences increased in perceived intenseness. When touch was blocked, the perceived loss of information was smaller and participants reported that familiar products felt less like their own. Blocking audition resulted in communication problems and a feeling of being cut off. Blocking olfaction mainly decreased the intenseness of the experience. These outcomes suggest that vision mainly plays a functional role in everyday user-product interactions, whereas the main role for olfaction lies in the affective domain. Sensory impairments change the way people experience products. Blocking a single modality during everyday tasks gives insight into the impact of impairments. These insights can be used to develop products for multiple user groups (inclusive design) or products used under extreme environmental conditions.