Aesthetic perception in food presentation: A neurogastronomy study on consumers

Aesthetics is a significant concept that influences consumers through elements of beauty and visual appeal. Food shapes individuals' aesthetic perceptions, and the presentation of the food plays a decisive role in the formation of this perception. Visual elements such as color, layout, and form used in food presentation provide consumers with an aesthetic experience and influence their choice behaviors. In this context, neurogastronomy has become an important discipline in understanding how food presentation influences consumer behavior by examining the visual dimensions of food. This research aims to analyze the predictive power of combinations of "plate color" and "presentation type" in consumer choice behavior using eye-tracking techniques to examine the aesthetic dimensions of food. This exploratory and predictive study examines, from a neurogastronomy perspective, the visual attention parameters related to food presentation aesthetics, which are combinations of plate colors (white, black, gray) and presentation types (arc and line, arcs, circle and single line), and their impact on consumer choice. In the experiment conducted in January–February 2025, 39 participants were included in the analysis using a Tobii X60 eye-tracking device and a food preference questionnaire. Five of the nine hypotheses (H2, H3, H5, H6, and H7) were accepted. The findings indicate that fixation parameters significantly predict consumer preference in combinations of plate color and presentation type. FC was found to positively influence preference behavior when presented with "arcs " and "circle and line" on a white plate. TFD had a positive effect on "arcs " on a black plate, while AFD had a negative effect. Only TFF had a negative effect on "circle and line" presentation on a black plate. On the gray plate, only four parameters (TFD, AFD, TFF, and TTFF) were found to be effective when presented with "arc and line," with TFD and TTFF showing positive effects. In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that aesthetically pleasing food presentations, including plate color and presentation style, influence individuals' visual focus levels, thus predicting their preference behavior. In this context, presenting aesthetic elements in the right combinations can provide significant advantages to businesses at the micro level and to sectoral competitiveness at the macro level.