Effects of Different Beer Compounds on Biometrically Assessed Emotional Responses in Consumers

Abstract

The study of emotional responses from consumers toward beer products is an important digital tool to obtain novel information about the acceptability of beers and their optimal physicochemical composition. This research proposed the use of biometrics to assess emotional responses from Mexican beer consumers while tasting top- and bottom-fermented samples. Furthermore, a novel emotional validation assessment using proven evoking images for neutral, negative, and positive emotions was proposed. The results showed that emotional responses obtained from self-reported emoticons and biometrics are correlated to the specific emotions evoked by the visual, aroma, and taste aspects of beers. Consumers preferred bottom-fermentation beers and disliked the wheat-based and higher-bitterness samples. Chemical compounds and concentrations were in accordance to previously reported research for similar beer styles. However, the levels of hordenine were not high enough to evoke positive emotions in the biometric assessment, which opens additional research opportunities to assess higher concentrations of this alkaloid to increase the happiness perception of low or non-alcoholic beers.

Keywords

• hordenine
• alcohol content
• elicited emotions
• Geneva images
• emoticons
• biometrics