At Presentation Day 2016, held at the College of San Mateo on February 13, one of the activities was a yogurt tasting event. This activity tested whether a yogurt's color affected what flavor participants perceived when tasting yogurts. Cups of vanilla yogurt of four different colors (red, yellow, blue, and green) were placed on a table. Participants were asked to pick a color and fill out a form stating their age, gender, the color they picked and what the flavor of their yogurt was (participants did not know the actual flavor was vanilla). This test was conducted to determine the effect of food color on taste perception. The results are tabulated below:
|
Guessed Flavor Correctly |
Guessed Flavor that Matched Color |
Guessed Flavor Incorrectly and Guessed a Flavor not Related to Color |
Girls |
2 |
1 |
17 |
Boys |
8 |
2 |
6 |
Adults |
7 |
1 |
2 |
From these results, it can be concluded that adults are not greatly influenced by color when guessing the flavor of the yogurt. Overall, neither boys nor girls were influenced by the yogurt's color. So, the conclusion from this test is that color does not affect flavor perception among those attendees who participated in this test. However, we need to keep looking at what other influences there are on taste perception!