How poor our recollection of taste can be

Product & Experience

It turns out that we actually have surprisingly little recollection (or awareness) of even that which we tasted only a few moments ago. In one classic demonstration of this phenomenon, known as ‘choice blindness’, shoppers (nearly 200 of them) in a Swedish supermarket were asked whether they would like to take part in a taste test. Those who agreed were then given two jams to evaluate. They were similar in terms of their colour and texture (e.g., blackcurrant versus blueberry). Once the shoppers had picked their favourite, they sampled it once again and said why they had chosen it, and what exactly made it so much nicer than the other jam. The shoppers were more than happy to oblige, regaling the experimenter with tales of how it was their favourite, or that it tasted especially good spread on toast, etc.

What many of the shoppers failed to notice, though, was that the jams had been switched before they tasted their preferred spread the second time around. The experimenter was using double-ended jam jars in order to effect this switch unnoticed. In other words, the unsuspecting customers were justifying why they liked the spread that they had just rejected.

Humans make dreadful historians of their own jam. That is less insulting than it sounds. The shoppers were not lying when they praised the flavour they had just rejected. Their brains received a result and produced a plausible explanation, like an enthusiastic junior analyst who has not noticed the data changed.

Research departments often ask customers to be forensic psychologists. Why did you choose this? What caused that frustration? Which feature changed your mind three weeks ago? The answer may be fluent, specific and completely sincere. None of those qualities makes memory a CCTV recording.

A diner credits the wine while the expensive-looking label does quiet work. A shopper denies noticing packaging and reaches automatically for the familiar block of colour. A software user condemns the whole product because one slow screen soured the journey, then forgets which screen it was. Asking harder does not necessarily retrieve truth; sometimes it commissions better fiction.

Interviews still matter. People can describe present feelings, language, goals and annoyances brilliantly. Just stop asking them to reverse-engineer hidden causes from memory and calling the result insight. Observe the task. Test alternatives. Look at behaviour. Ask about a specific moment while it is still warm.

My favourite warning sign is an explanation that arrives too neatly. Real decisions are often a grubby mixture of habit, context, expectation and whatever happened five seconds earlier. If the customer’s answer fits the strategy slide perfectly, check the jar has not got two ends.