PREDICTING CANDY PREFERENCES

THE NEUROLOGIC VALUE BEHIND YOUR SWEET TOOTH AND THE BRAND OF CANDY THAT TAKES THE CAKE. 

Humans evolved to crave sugar, and it seems each of us craves a different way to get our sugar fix. The craving is not only for the taste and calories, but the brain motivates us to consume sweets by making the entire experience of eating valuable, and inherently rewarding.

Like everyone else, we at Immersion love sweets and we designed a study to understand how the brain gets value throughout the entire candy consumption experience: opening the package, pulling out the candy, picking it up, putting it in the mouth, chewing it, and experiencing the taste.

We also wanted to to see if measures of neurologic value during this experience would predict people's candy preferences.

Nine candies were included in the study.

• Red Vines Original
• Licorice, Grape
• Sour Punch Bites Apple
• Sour Punch Blue Raspberry Straws
• Sour Punch Strawberry Straws
• Fruit Vines Bites Strawberry
• Rollin' Red Candy Super Ropes
• Hershey's Kisses

We thank the American Licorice Company for donating their products for testing. (Yum!)

Volunteers watched while the package was opened in front of them and then they were invited to take a piece of candy out of the wrapper, place it in their mouths, and chew it slowly, holding it in their mouths for 60 seconds. We collected data on real-time neurologic value throughout this experience. After tasting the candy, participants could eat it or spit it out in trashcans we provided. 

Volunteers then relaxed for 60 seconds while we continued to measure their unconscious value in response to the candy's taste. Then, participants were given a cracker and some water to cleanse their palates before tasting the next candy.

After each tasting, participants were asked if they would purchase the candy they had just tasted. Data were collected on 10 people ages 20-55, both males and females.