"The present paper presents four studies that explore how sampling and eating food by touching it directly with hands affects hedonic evaluations and consumption volume."
What they found, however, was that for only the high self-control, disciplined consumers that they perceived the food to be better tasting and they were disposed to eat more of it. For the other subjects (like me maybe!), adding touch did not appear to contribute or enhance either taste or appetite for the food samples in the study. Why that should be the case, was not clear, other than the possibility that in the less self-controlled consumers, the executive control centers of the brain were offline already in terms of the direct, unfettered attraction of FOOD!
A few years ago, had a visiting scholar from China here with us for a year. It took almost the entire time for her to get me to understand how to get Chinese students to buy in to (haptic) pronunciation teaching, specifically, but, in general, more integrated, communicative pronunciation work. My "mistake" had been trying to convince relatively high-control consumers of pronunciation teaching in this case, to first be more like me, less high-control and more experiential as learners.
It has always been a problem for some, not just the Chinese students, to buy into highly gesture-based instruction. But touch was another thing entirely. Most any student can "get it", how touch can enhance learning and memory-- and be coaxed into trying some of the gestural, kinaethetic techniques. Probably for several reasons, one being that the functions of touch in the haptic system are to (1) carefully control gesture use, and (2) intensify the connection between the gesture and lexical or phonological target, the word or sound process. Also, it was (3) much easier to present the general, popular research on the contribution of touch to experience and learning, and (4) the concept of somehow getting a learner to work in their least dominant modality, a basic construct in hypnosis, for example, can be the most effective or powerful.
The assumption here is that the metacognitively self-controlled are less likely to be influenced by immediate feelings or impressions, but once that "barrier" is bridged, as touch does so effectively, the relatively novel sensual experience for them has greater impact. Think: men and the power of perfume . . .
In other words focusing initially on the touch that concluded every gesture made a difference. Have been doing that ever since. Students are much more receptive to trying the gestural techniques once they feel that they have sufficient understanding . . . and then once they have tried it, focusing more on touch than on gesture . . they are "hooked" . . . being more able and amenable to sense the power of embodiment in learning pronunciation from then on.
If you have a taste for pronunciation work with Chinese students, what is your recipe?
Keep in touch . . .
Original Source:
Madzharov, A. Self-Control and Touch: When Does Direct Versus Indirect Touch Increase Hedonic Evaluations and Consumption of Food Journal of Retailing Volume 95, Issue 4, December 2019, Pages 170-185 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.10.009
It has always been a problem for some, not just the Chinese students, to buy into highly gesture-based instruction. But touch was another thing entirely. Most any student can "get it", how touch can enhance learning and memory-- and be coaxed into trying some of the gestural, kinaethetic techniques. Probably for several reasons, one being that the functions of touch in the haptic system are to (1) carefully control gesture use, and (2) intensify the connection between the gesture and lexical or phonological target, the word or sound process. Also, it was (3) much easier to present the general, popular research on the contribution of touch to experience and learning, and (4) the concept of somehow getting a learner to work in their least dominant modality, a basic construct in hypnosis, for example, can be the most effective or powerful.The assumption here is that the metacognitively self-controlled are less likely to be influenced by immediate feelings or impressions, but once that "barrier" is bridged, as touch does so effectively, the relatively novel sensual experience for them has greater impact. Think: men and the power of perfume . . .
In other words focusing initially on the touch that concluded every gesture made a difference. Have been doing that ever since. Students are much more receptive to trying the gestural techniques once they feel that they have sufficient understanding . . . and then once they have tried it, focusing more on touch than on gesture . . they are "hooked" . . . being more able and amenable to sense the power of embodiment in learning pronunciation from then on.
If you have a taste for pronunciation work with Chinese students, what is your recipe?
Keep in touch . . .
Original Source:
The "art" here, of providing just sufficient explanation or rationale without getting too far into the "cognitive" weeds, so to speak, (or the "gustatory" metaphor of too many cooks spoiling the broth) is key. It was as if touch, not only sensually, but also cognitively as a reasonable basis for taking the tactile risk, is in some sense unique. Earlier blog posts played with idea of not "changing the channel," of finding a way to help students change pronunciation that was more than just new images and new sounds, the channels currently occupied by the L1 or others. Gesture, touch and taste have always been interesting options to accomplish that.
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