Understanding Individual Differences in Acquired Flavour Liking in Humans

The majority of human food likes and dislikes are learned, and there are multiple learning models which explain how flavour liking may be acquired. Two models based on flavour-based learning have attracted considerable attention as potential explanations for acquisition of flavour liking. The first model is based on associations between a novel flavour and an existing liked or disliked flavour (flavour-flavour learning: FFL) and the second based on associations between the flavour and an effect of ingestion (flavour-consequence learning: FCL). However, experimental studies of acquired flavour liking based on these models have had mixed outcomes, with as many studies unable to find changes in liking post-training as there are studies reporting positive findings. This brief review discusses the extent to which the apparent inconsistency in the literature may reflect individual differences in evaluation of the training flavour in FFL or the consequence in FCL. The conclusion is that an understanding of these individual differences can explain many apparent inconsistencies in the flavour-learning literature. These findings also suggest that differences in sensitivity to these types of learning may explain individual differences in sensitivity to hedonically-driven overeating.