Effects of prior exposure to palatable and unpalatable novel foods on children's willingness to taste other novel foods

In two studies, 7- to 9-year-old and 10- to 12-year-old children received taste exposure to four good-tasting familiar, four good-tasting novel or four bad-tasting novel foods. Following this exposure phase, they saw a series of different foods, familiar and novel, and rated their willingness to taste them. For older children, exposure to the novel-good foods increased willingness to taste novel foods in comparison to the familiar-good control, while exposure to the novel-bad foods had no effect. For younger children, exposure to both novel-good and novel-bad foods decreased willingness to taste novel foods. The studies were originally framed in terms of children's schemas about novel foods and how exposure to good- and bad-tasting novel foods constituted provision of schema-inconsistent (novel-good) or schema-consistent (novel-bad) information. While such a framework accounted well for the results for the older children, it did not account for those for the younger children. The behaviour of the younger children was tentatively explained in terms of their attempt to regulate arousal produced by the initial exposure to the novel foods. (C) 1999 Academic Press.