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 t aste exposure to four good-tasting familiar, four good-tasting novel or fou r bad-tasting novel foods. Following this exposure phase, they saw a series of different foods, familiar and novel, and rated their willingness to tas te them. For older children, exposure to the novel-good foods increased wil lingness to taste novel foods in comparison to the familiar-good control, w hile exposure to the novel-bad foods had no effect. For younger children, e xposure to both novel-good and novel-bad foods decreased willingness to tas te novel foods. The studies were originally framed in terms of children's s chemas about novel foods and how exposure to good- and bad-tasting novel fo ods constituted provision of schema-inconsistent (novel-good) or schema-con sistent (novel-bad) information. While such a framework accounted well for the results for the older children, it did not account for those for the yo unger children. The behaviour of the younger children was tentatively expla ined in terms of their attempt to regulate arousal produced by the initial exposure to the novel foods. (C) 1999 Academic Press.