The Taste of Typeface
Open accessAbstract
Previous research has demonstrated that typefaces can convey meaning over-and-above the actual semantic content of whatever happens to be written. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that people match basic taste words (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter) to typefaces varying in their roundness versus angularity. In Experiment 1, the participants matched rounder typefaces with the word “sweet,” while matching more angular typefaces with the taste words “bitter,” “salty,” and “sour.” Experiment 2 demonstrates that rounder typefaces are liked more and are judged easier to read than their more angular counterparts. We conclude that there is a strong relationship between roundness/angularity, ease of processing, and typeface liking, which in turn influences the correspondence between typeface and taste. These results are discussed in terms of the notion of affective crossmodal correspondences.
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Food-extrinsic shape can evoke taste similar associations when it comes to plate shape, packaging shape, and typeface/font.
“Like food shape, food-extrinsic shape can also evoke taste similar associations when it comes to plate shape [31,57] (though see Reference [8]) and even packaging shape [68] and typeface / font [69]”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [69]
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Velasco, C., Woods, A. T., Hyndman, S., & Spence, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Type Tasting, London, UK
- Corresponding author
- Velasco, Carlos
- Venue
- i-Perception
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2015-08
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 2041669515593040-2041669515593040
- ISSN
- 2041-6695 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4934647
- OpenAlex
- W2266828181
- Cited by
- 85
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 13.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- i-Perception (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/L007053/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Aesthetic Perception and Analysis
- Keywords
- typefaces, taste words, cross-modal correspondence, roundness, angularity, reading ease
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