Snack names influence how filling we imagine they will be — new research

People tend to associate some sounds like ‘ee’ or ‘t’ with smaller sizes, and others like ‘oh’ or ‘b’ with larger sizes. New research finds this impacts how we perceive our snacks. (Unsplash) Snack names influence how filling we imagine they will be — new research Published: September 23, 2026 12.33pm EDT Share article Print article Imagine being hungry in a grocery store and looking for a snack. You have a choice between Gobo granola bars or Kipi granola bars. Which do you reach for to fill you up? If you’re like the participants in our new study, you probably said Gobo. There are many factors that affect our impressions of foods. For example, people perceive products with duller packaging to be healthier than those with vivid colours. People also tend to assume that snacks in a glossy package are higher in fat. Read more: When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals In our new study, we looked at how the sound of a snack’s name impacts these impressions. In particular, we looked at whether the sound of a snack name can lead to expectations that the food is heavier/lighter and more/less filling. We found that people expected foods with a “large” name like Norgo to be heavier and more filling than foods with a “small” name like Iskee. Some sounds feel smaller Our study made use of an effect that is almost 100 years old: the “mil/mal effect.” This is the less well-known sibling of the “bouba/kiki effect” — the tendency to pair some sounds with round shapes and some with spiky shapes, that was proposed by German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in the same year, 1929. The mil/mal effect refers to the tendency for people to associate some sounds like “ee” or “t” with smaller sizes, and others like “oh” or “b” with larger sizes. There are many different ideas about why this is. One is that it has to do with the size of your mouth as you pronounce the sounds (try saying “ee” and then “oh” for example). Another is that it comes from the sounds that small or big things make in the real world. Imagine the sound made by a baby chick, for example, compared to a bear. What factors influence your choice of snack from a vending machine? (Unsplash/Estera) We wanted to know if this could affect how people think about foods. We tested more than 600 participants, giving them fictional brand names for different snack items. For example, we asked them to “imagine a new brand of potato chips called Tikee” or “a new brand of trail…