Beyond the plate: How visual-affective environmental cues and physiological arousal drive food choice and sensory enjoyment in multisensory dining

This study investigated how visual-affective environmental cues influence food choices, physiological responses, and sensory experiences during a multisensory dining experience. A total of 360 adult participants were randomly assigned to consume a standardized meal consisting of various nutrient-dense (vegetables, cherry tomatoes, yoghurt) and energy-dense (pizza, fries, ice cream) foods. Participants ate while viewing one of five digital video environments or a silent control. The environments varied significantly in their affective properties, ranging from calm nature scenes to high-arousal urban and stressful contexts. Results indicated that calm, low-arousal videos elicited positive emotions (contentment), significantly increasing the intake and enjoyment of healthier food options, while reducing post-meal hunger and enhancing post-meal fullness and satiation. Conversely, highly stimulating environments, whether positive (excitement) or negative (distress), triggered elevated heart rate and skin conductance, leading to increased consumption of energy-dense foods. A Bayesian Network (BN) was employed to model the probabilistic dependencies between these variables. The present findings suggest that physiological arousal may represent an important regulatory mechanism linking environmental cues to eating behaviour, influencing unhealthy intake via two distinct mechanisms: a liking mediated hedonic route associated with excitement and a direct stress eating route associated with distress. Specifically, the presence of distress increased the probability of high unhealthy intake to 73 % independent of hedonic liking. These findings indicate that physiological arousal may be one pathway through which emotionally distinct video stimuli influence dietary decisions. More broadly, the findings raise the possibility that low-arousal dining environments may support more mindful and healthier eating patterns by reducing physiological arousal, although this implication requires direct testing in real-world settings.