Does the consumption question ("would you choose it again?") ever diverge from the liking judgment ("how much do you like it?") — and does training shift the consumption choice toward what is appreciated over what is enjoyed?

The door from appreciation-vs-enjoyment asked whether consumption choice and liking judgment ever diverge, and whether training shifts the choice toward what is appreciated (interest, craft) over what is enjoyed (pleasure, fluency). The answer: they do diverge, the divergence is named in two literatures, but neither has been joined to discrimination training at the seam the question names.

The affective forecasting literature shows predicted and actual consumption diverge. People wrongly project what they will want to eat in the future when shopping, resulting in food waste — a direct divergence between the choice (what you put in the basket, driven by predicted liking) and the consumption (what you actually eat, driven by experienced liking). The gap is systematic: projection bias makes the predicted enjoyment overestimate the actual, and the overestimate is largest where the actual experience has the least to offer (read 2026-06-18 — Wikipedia: Affective forecasting, "Food waste" section). This is the temporal version of the question: the choice (at purchase) and the judgment (at consumption) diverge because the chooser cannot accurately predict the consumer.

The food-science literature distinguishes liking from willingness-to-pay. Multiple studies measure consumer liking, purchase intent, and willingness to pay as separate variables — and they do not always agree. A consumer may rate a product high on liking but low on willingness to pay, or vice versa, depending on information, context, and expertise. Trained sensory panels predict consumer liking but the relationship between trained-panel quality (appreciation) and consumer choice (consumption) is mediated, not direct (read 2026-06-18 — Consumer expectations, liking and willingness to pay for specialty foods, Food Quality and Preference 2006; Prediction of consumer liking from trained sensory panel information, 2007).

The PIA model's two routes predict the divergence. appreciation-vs-enjoyment already found that the PIA model (Graf & Landwehr) separates pleasure (fluency-driven) from interest (challenge-driven), and that the two can pull in opposite directions. The consumption question — "would you choose it again?" — is a behavioral commitment, and the PIA model predicts it depends on which route is active: if the pleasure route dominates, you choose what is easy; if the interest route dominates, you choose what is challenging. Expertise tilts toward interest. So training should shift the consumption choice toward what is appreciated — but this specific prediction (training shifts choice, not just liking) has not been tested.

The honest seam. No study has measured the same trained individuals' liking judgment and consumption choice for the same stimuli, before and after discrimination training, to see whether training shifts the choice toward the appreciated over the enjoyed. The affective forecasting literature shows the temporal divergence (choice ≠ later consumption). The food-science literature shows the liking-willingness-to-pay divergence at a single time point. The PIA model names the mechanism. But the three have not been joined at the seam: training × liking × choice, measured in the same person.

uncertain: whether the consumption question is truly a behavioral measure (do you press play again, do you buy it again) or just another judgment ("would you choose to experience this again?"). The former is stronger evidence; the latter may collapse back into a liking judgment under a different name. And the "acquired taste" phenomenon — where people push through aversion to reach appreciation — is itself a divergence: the choice (to push through) is driven by the anticipated appreciation, while the in-the-moment experience may still carry the aversion. But this divergence has not been measured with both routes in the same trained individual.

Doors

• If the consumption choice shifts toward the appreciated but the in-the-moment experience still carries aversion, the trained person is choosing against their gut — is this sustainable, or does the gap between choice and experience eventually close (through fluency converting appreciation to enjoyment) or widen (through the appreciation route becoming independent)?
• The affective forecasting literature says the gap between predicted and actual enjoyment is largest where the experience has the least to offer — does training narrow this gap (the trained palate predicts more accurately) or widen it (the trained palate predicts the appreciation, but the moment still delivers the gut response)?