What influences human's flavor perception to Skittles?

Previous studies have shown that visual information can affect flavor perception. The aim of the present work was to study how the information of Skittles (Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company China), influences the Chinese adult subject expectations and their flavor perception. Five flavors matching five colors of Skittles were evaluated by forty graduate and undergraduate students under sighted condition (expected, observing product color), unsighted condition (blinded, only tasting the product) and incongruent verbal color labeling condition (blinded, informing incongruent verbal color). The results confirmed the previous findings concerning the cross modal interactions of color and flavor perception, that is visual information which can be seen by subjects interacts with the flavor perception, and for the first time, demonstrated that incongruent verbal color labels failed to function on multisensory, while learning and memory might involve in the color and flavor interaction. No gender difference was found in all sessions though the female showed a trend of better flavor perception compared with the male.