Modeling Food Preferences Over Time

This paper reports the results of experiments designed to establish the nature of the functional relations between the measure of preference for a menu item and the time history of its previous consumption. Experimental data support the hypothesis that such a relation indeed exists and a mathematical representation of the phenomenon is feasible. Evidence is presented that the preference-time function is conceived by most people as being monotonically increasing and concave. There is a distinction, however, between preference measures defined on relative and absolute time scales, with the latter one accounting for the effect of repetitiveness and providing a link between the interpretation of food preference and frequency ratings of individuals. The experimental data indicate that the preferred frequency of serving is the locus of the maximum of a function that expresses the realization of the time-averaged value of preference over absolute time. Methods are outlined for the routine estimation of these fun...