This experiment investigated whether affective information from unfamiliar people can influence the affective ratings for unfamiliar foods, before and after participants have ate the foods. The participants rated a food product's appearance in terms of how palatable it looked on a 7-point Likert scale before they had eaten it (affective expectation). They also rated how palatable the food actually was after they had eaten it (affective evaluation). Results showed that there was a significant interaction between when participants provided the ratings and whether they had been informed of other people's affective evaluation. Exposure to affective information did not influence affective expectation, but it did increase affective evaluation. These results suggest that affective information that is presented simultaneously with a visual experience might only be influential when perceivers are able to test the information through their perceptual experience.

Key words: Affective evaluation, expectation, food, information