Discussion
This study showed that predictive cues can lead to assimilation
effects for liked food products as long as the cue is presented
supraliminally and the food products are liked. Neither changes in
the nature of the cue (i.e. whether it was hedonic or sensory) nor
the size of the differences between cue and actual drink influenced
the strength of this effect. For disliked drinks, we observed a
similar effect of the cues for the most disliked/salty drink only. This
indicates that the nature of the drink itself plays a critical role in
modulating assimilation effects.