Effects of color-taste association on the visual search process for reference images on beverage packaging: Behavioral, electrophysiological and causal mechanisms

Provisionally accepted

Visual search for product packaging involves complex cognitive processes that are strongly influenced by learned associations derived from extensive long-term experience. The present research used EEG technology and manipulated the color display of reference images on beverage bottles to explore the underlying neurocognitive pathways. In particular, we aimed to investigate the influence of color-taste association strength on the visual processing of such stimuli as well as the underlying neural mechanisms. The behavioral results showed that stimuli with strong association strength elicited the fastest response and the highest accuracy compared to stimuli with weak association strength and the achromatic ones. The EEG results further supported that the chromatic stimuli elicited a more prominent N2 component than the achromatic ones, and the stimuli with strong association strength elicited larger P3 and smaller N400 amplitudes than those with weak association strength. Furthermore, source localization using sLORETA showed significant activations in the inferior temporal lobe. In summary, our research suggests that (1) color expectations guide the visual search process and trigger faster responses to congruent visual stimuli, (2) both the initial perceptual representation and the subsequent semantic representation play a crucial role in effective visual search for the targets, and (3) the strength of the color-taste association may exert an influence on visual processing by modulating memory accessibility.