Researchers have found that photos of food with a high saturation level cause people to perceive food as fresher and tastier. Therefore, they are more willing to order these dishes.
However, the plans of the restaurant visitors and the distance to the food in the photo still play an important role.
During this study, two online experiments were conducted. 267 people attended the first one. They had to imagine ordering their own food online. They were then shown pictures of a poke bowl, chunks of raw marinated fish, vegetables, and a Hawaiian dish with sauce over rice. Next, each of the participants was randomly shown one of four photos: high saturation, low saturation, close-up, and a photo taken from a distance. Volunteers had to rate how appetizing the food looked in the pictures and how likely they were to buy it.
It turns out that for people, food looks fresher and tastier in more saturated photos. Therefore, they were more likely to order. True, the effect was even stronger when the meal was captured from afar with rich photos.
The second experiment involved 222 people. Subjects had to pretend to browse Instagram* photos of pizzas at a fictional Pizza City restaurant. At the same time, pictures with high and low saturation were shown. They were then told that they should either eat alone or with their families. They were then asked again to rate the freshness and flavor of the pizza in the photo and to say whether they would order this pizza.
As in the first experiment, it turned out that the foods with high saturation in the photo were perceived by people as fresher and tastier. Therefore, they often wanted to buy it. Moreover, this effect was less noticeable in those who went out to dinner with their family in the evening, compared to those who ate alone.
* belongs to Meta, an organization recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited in Russia.
Source: Ferra
