The perception of carbonated soft drink taste in naturalistic settings can be influenced by various factors that are independent from chemical senses and metabolic mechanisms. Previous studies have demonstrated that flavor preference in humans is influenced by expectations (Plassmann et al., 2008), crossmodal factors (Imram, 1999; Spence et al., 2010), and branding (McClure et al., 2004). In order to effectively measure sweetener recognition and taste preference while eliminating the influences of intervening factors, such as brand and color of the drinks, all the non-gustatory information should remain unknown to the participants. Considering that replacing SSBs with ASBs may be a factor in reducing sugar consumption, the objective of this study was to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between sweetener recognition and soft drink pleasantness. We aimed at verifying whether the subjective rates of pleasantness and sweetness of carbonated soft drinks is associated with the ability to recognize whether they are sweetened with sugar or with non-caloric sweeteners. Empirically, we tested participants’ accuracy in distinguishing sugar from artificial sweeteners in a set of commercially available carbonated soft drinks and we measured their subjective rates of pleasantness and sweetness.
Materials and Methods