Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

This study examined how individuals would express their preference or distaste for experiences associated with beverages they found to be delicious or unpalatable using facial expressions. We recorded videos where six individuals were asked to drink their preferred or unpreferred beverages and to make “delicious” or “unpalatable” expressions irrespective of what they drank, resulting in four conditions: (1) “delicious” expression with a preferred beverage (genuine delicious), (2) “unpalatable” expression with an unpreferred beverage (genuine unpalatable), (3) “delicious” expression with an unpreferred beverage (fake delicious), and (4) “unpalatable” expression with a preferred beverage (fake unpalatable). A total of 33 participants watched the videos and estimated the level of deliciousness of the beverage and inferred the emotions of happiness, sadness, and disgust conveyed by the actor. The results showed genuine and fake delicious expressions conveyed more deliciousness than genuine and fake unpalatable expressions. The participants interpreted that the drink was more unpalatable when observing fake expressions than when observing genuine unpalatable expressions. There was no difference in the evaluation of deliciousness between the genuine and fake delicious expressions. Furthermore, fake unpalatable expressions were rated as containing more disgust than genuine unpalatable expressions. These results suggest that individuals exaggerate disgust when making fake and unpalatable expressions.