You see what you eat: effects of spicy food on emotion perception

Among the different tastes, the preference for spiciness seems to be quite common around the world. While widely liked by many people, the psychological effects of eating spicy food have not received too much attention. Can the preference and consumption of spicy food affect our behaviors? More importantly, can spicy food eating affect our emotion perception process which is the core driver of social cognition? The present research explores these questions. More specially, the results showed that spicy food preference positively predicted the perceptual sensitivity for the facial expression of anger and disgust, and the relationship was mediated by trait aggression and trait pathogen avoidance. Additionally, we further explored the effects of spicy food consumption on the perception of anger and disgust, the results demonstrated that consuming spicy food can increase individual’s state aggression, which subsequently facilitates the perception of angry expressions. The results of these studies will help us to reveal that how the taste of spiciness shapes the emotion perception process. They will deepen our understanding of the emotion perception process and the relationship between our mind and body, and have great implications for our food industry and our policymakers.