Defining and Measuring Sensory Language Deficits in Eating: Development and Initial Validation of the Food Alexiaisthisi Scale

For decades, the prevailing idea in nutrition and psychology has been that everyone experiences food in much the same way. The assumption was that if we simply paid more attention to our meals, everyone would naturally slow down, enjoy their food more, and eat the right amount. This approach, often called mindful eating, asks people to focus on the taste, smell, and texture of what they are consuming. It is a practice rooted in the belief that we can all train our senses to notice the details of a meal, much like learning to notice the colors in a painting. However, this view overlooks a fundamental possibility: that some people might lack the specific vocabulary or mental tools to describe what they are sensing. Just as a person might struggle to name a specific shade of blue without a word for it, a person might struggle to identify the sharpness of a lemon or the crunch of a carrot if they have never learned the words to capture those sensations. This gap between experiencing a sensation and being able to name it is the central question of new research exploring how we talk about food.

Researchers Michail Mantzios and Kyriaki Giannou set out to investigate this gap by defining and measuring a specific difficulty they call "food alexiaisthisi." The term, derived from Greek roots meaning "without word sensation," describes the inability to identify and describe the sensory qualities of food. To test whether this is a real and measurable trait, the team conducted a series of four studies involving nearly one thousand participants. They developed a new tool, the Food Alexiaisthisi Scale, which asks people to rate how difficult they find it to put words to the taste, smell, and texture of what they eat. The scale includes statements like, "I often experience confusion about the exact taste, smell, or texture I am having while eating," or "I find it difficult to put into words the taste, smell, or texture of what I am eating." Participants rate these statements on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

In the first study, involving over three hundred people, the researchers analyzed the responses to see if the questions grouped together in a meaningful way. The results showed that the scale works as a single, unified measure. People who found it hard to describe one aspect of food, like texture, also tended to find it hard to describe taste or smell. The questions were consistent, meaning that if a person answered a certain way, they were likely to answer similarly if asked again. This established that the scale reliably measures a specific trait: the difficulty in verbalizing sensory food experiences.

To ensure this trait was stable over time, the researchers asked a second group of participants to take the same test again two weeks later. The scores remained consistent, suggesting that food alexiaisthisi is not just a fleeting mood or a temporary confusion, but a relatively stable characteristic of how a person interacts with food. The researchers then moved to see if this scale actually measured what it claimed to measure. They introduced a second tool, the Food Lexiaisthisi Literacy Questionnaire, where participants were asked to write down as many descriptive words as they could for common foods like pizza, bread, and chocolate. They found a clear link: people who scored high on the difficulty scale (meaning they struggled to describe food) tended to write fewer sensory words when asked to describe specific items. Conversely, those who could easily name the sensations of food wrote more detailed descriptions. This confirmed that the scale was successfully identifying a real difference in sensory language ability.

The most significant finding emerged in the final study, which looked at how this difficulty affects actual eating habits. The researchers examined the relationship between mindful eating, a specific type of repetitive eating called "grazing" (eating small amounts of food repeatedly throughout the day without a clear mealtime), and the ability to describe sensory experiences. They discovered that food alexiaisthisi significantly mediated the relationship between mindful eating behaviour and grazing. This means that the ability to identify and describe sensory experiences acts as a key mechanism linking mindful eating to grazing. People who practiced mindful eating were less likely to graze, and this relationship operates through the pathway of food alexiaisthisi. For those who struggled to put words to their sensations, the research suggests that the capacity to articulate those sensations is a critical component in how mindful eating influences grazing; the benefit of mindful eating relies on the capacity to articulate those sensations.

This finding challenges the common assumption that paying attention to food is enough to change eating habits. The research suggests that attention alone is insufficient if the person lacks the cognitive tools to process and articulate those sensations. It is not enough to tell someone to "notice the flavor"; if they cannot name the flavor, the brain may not register the experience as fully, and the self-regulation that comes from that registration may fail to occur. The study indicates that for some individuals, the barrier to healthier eating is not a lack of willpower or attention, but a lack of sensory vocabulary.

The researchers emphasize that this does not mean mindful eating is ineffective, but rather that it may need to be taught differently. Interventions might need to include specific training to build a vocabulary for food, helping people learn to identify and describe the specific qualities of what they eat. By recognizing that some people face a deficit in sensory language, nutritionists and counselors can tailor their advice. Instead of a generic instruction to "eat mindfully," they can offer concrete exercises to help individuals build the words they need to describe their meals. This approach could make the practice of mindful eating more accessible and effective for a wider range of people, turning a vague concept into a tangible skill that supports better health and enjoyment of food.