Effects of complexity and intensity on sensory specific satiety and food acceptance after repeated consumption

The objectives of the present work were (1) to study the effects of complexity and intensity of foods on sensory specific satiety (SSS) and their acceptance after repeated consumption, and (2) to determine the predictive value of SSS for acceptance over repeated consumption. Two studies were performed: a soup study (N = 66) and a snack study (N = 61). In the snack study, the intense snacks produced somewhat more SSS than the less intense snacks (F(3, 177) = 2.2, p = 0.09). Both studies demonstrated that pleasantness of stimuli with a near to optimal arousal level, which is a combination of complexity and intensity, was more resistant to a decline over repeated exposure than of stimuli with lower arousal levels (soups: F(14, 546) = 2.0, p = 0.04; snacks: F(15, 450) = 6.1, p = 0.003). The data do not support the idea that SSS could serve as a rapid predictor of long-term acceptance (soups: rSSS-repeated consumption = −0.05, p = 0.73; snacks: rSSS-repeated consumption = 0.20, p = 0.19). These findings need to be confirmed with stimuli that are more comparable with respect to initial liking and sensory qualities other than intensity and complexity.