Eighth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

It has been seen that when is time to eat, people´s eyes perceived the plate that is in front of them as delicious or not, depending of its characteristics, affecting people’s intention to eat. That is why the purpose of this study is to identify if the variation of color and shapes, influence the visual attractiveness of the dish. The methodology applied was the following: Design of three plates; determination of the areas of interest and run an Eye tracker study rotating each image 4 times within a sample of 30 people; Qualitative and Kruskal- Wallis statistical analysis. Preliminary results show there is higher attention when the colors are combined than when they are alone. Yellow is more attractive than pink. Peak shapes are the last seen objects and are less attractive than lines. As a conclusion it is necessary to understand the importance of plating and to have details attention, its necessary to “assess the impact of changes a dish’s visual design on people’s expectations.” This could be useful for chefs and other organizations (WHO) that try to persuade people to eat certain type of food, influencing their perception and willingness to eat, having into account that consumers are more visual attracted if the plates they order have round shapes and variety of colors.