If palatable food odors can elicit consumer approach behaviors
such as salivation and desire to eat, would imagined
odors do the same? To the best of our knowledge, no studies
have looked at whether merely imagining what a food smells
like similarly elicits salivation or other types of consumer
approach responses. We propose that imagined odors will
elicit consumer approach responses when the consumer can
create a clear visual mental image of the odor referent (the
object that emits the odor). To support this theorizing we
next review extant research on olfactory and visual imagery
processes.