Young women's impression of different red hospital meal trays

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the visual and gustatory impressions of 30 females ‹20-39 years old› concerning pictures of hospital meals served on trays of 10 different tones of red. Regarding the gustatory impressions of trays, the subjects more strongly perceived pale and soft tones as being associated with a sweet taste, bright tones with an acid taste, dark grayish tones with a bitter taste, and deeper tones with a pungent taste. As a result, red hues were found to be associated with various gustatory impressions. Comparison of impressions of trays of different tones, for which saturation and brightness were kept constant, revealed that both brightness and saturation were related. The trays that met all three factors of "safety of food and mealtime atmosphere", "attractiveness of food" and "enjoyment of food " extracted by a factor analysis were pale, soft, and light red respectively.