United States: According to the latest study, there are people who adore fiery and overly spiced foods. Yet some are opposed to the same.
The study suggests that the cause of such extreme human behavior may be due to how expectations shape sensory experiences.
More about the research
As per the experts, it could be explained, in other words, that some may find spicy food overwhelming simply because they expect it to be.
According to Dr. Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who was not involved with the study, “Expectations are powerful.”
Moreover, as CNN Health reported, “They can transform a burning sensation into a pleasurable experience or an unpleasant one, depending on how we anticipate the taste,” she added.
What has the study found?
The study was published on Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology, where the Chinese scientists scanned the brains of twenty-four individuals who preferred spicy foods and twenty-two of those who did not.
While doing the brain imaging, each person got thirty squirts of mild and high intensity hot sauce, followed by water, while being shown two blue-colored peppers.
The given peppers left participants with no clue about the spiciness of the hot sauce.
Furthermore, the test was repeated with the same hot sauces, and this time, the participants were shown two red peppers and the hottest sauce was also squirted into their mouths. Among the show peppers, one was red, and another was blue, one when the milder sauce was administered, and two blue peppers when water was provided.
The parts of the brain were associated with pleasure lit up in people who claimed they liked hot and spicy foods. In many cases, the hotter the spice, the more intense the pleasure.
This was not true for the brains of those who claimed to dislike spice, and their pain centers lit up when hot sauce was administered in both trials.
However, the experience of pain was drastically increased in the second trial, where the participating individuals knew they were given the hottest sauce.
According to the lead author Yi Luo, an investigator in the School of Psychology and Cognitive Science at East China Normal University in Shanghai, “I was surprised by how strongly negative expectations amplified the brain’s pain response, even though the stimulus was the same,” CNN Health reported.
“This highlights how our anticipation of discomfort can significantly intensify the experience of pain,” Luo added.