Would you rather tuck into a snack called a “Teek” or grab a bite of a “Blorogo”?
It sounds like a bit of harmless nonsense you’d hear on a game show, but the psychology behind those nonsense syllables runs surprisingly deep. Without even realising it, your brain instinctively matches certain sounds to physical qualities: sharp, clipped vowels feel crisp and light, while round, heavy consonants bring to mind something thick, rich, or substantial. Long before you ever unwrap a package or catch a scent of what’s inside, your ears have already started telling your stomach what to expect.
According to new research in sensory linguistics, the made-up names on food packaging have the power to shape our appetites before we’ve tasted a single bite. Marketers have relied on these sound associations for years to make crisps sound snappier or puddings sound creamier, but science is now showing just how strongly these sound-symbolism quirks influence our choices at the supermarket checkout. Understanding how these vocal tricks work reveals why you’re drawn to certain brands on the shelf, and how a couple of well-chosen consonants can make an everyday biscuit feel completely irresistible.
Why certain sounds feel bigger or smaller to us
This phenomenon builds on a much older discovery in psychology, where researchers invented completely made up words to test how people instinctively link sounds to shapes. When shown a rounded, blobby shape alongside a sharp, spiky one, and asked which word suited which shape, people overwhelmingly matched the rounded shape with the softer sounding word, and the spiky shape with the harsher sounding one.
What’s particularly striking is how consistent this pattern turns out to be, showing up across completely different languages and cultures, suggesting something universal about how certain sounds get mentally linked to physical qualities like shape, size, or weight, regardless of what language someone speaks.
What the “mil/mal effect” describes
A related pattern, sometimes referred to as the mil/mal effect, works in a similar way but focuses specifically on size. According to this theory, people tend to associate short, sharp sounds like “ee” and “t” with smaller objects, while broader, rounder sounds like “b” and “oh” get linked to bigger ones instead.
In practice, this means someone might instinctively assume a table named “mal” is larger than one named “mil”, purely based on how each name sounds, without ever seeing either table. It’s a subtle effect, but one that appears to shape expectations before any real information is even available.
Researchers decided to test this with snacks.
A team of researchers wanted to find out whether this same size linked sound pattern might influence how people perceive food specifically, and snack products turned out to be the perfect test case. Participants were shown a range of snacks given entirely fictional brand names, split deliberately between names designed to sound smaller and names designed to sound bigger.
The smaller sounding names included things like Iskee, Keesee, Kitsip and Spisiki, while the bigger sounding names included Bromogaw, Gawdoe, and Gobo. These fictional names were then assigned to a mix of both healthier snacks, like porridge and trail mix, and less healthy options like crisps, with each participant reviewing different products under different made up brand names.
What the results revealed about expectations
Regardless of whether the snack itself was healthy or not, people consistently imagined products with bigger sounding names as heavier and more filling compared with the exact same type of snack given a smaller sounding name instead. The actual nutritional content of the product made no real difference here, it was purely the sound of the name doing the work.
Interestingly, though, this perception change didn’t necessarily translate into which product people said they’d choose to buy in a real supermarket setting. When it came to purchasing decisions, a different factor turned out to matter far more than the name’s sound alone.
The shopper’s goal mattered more than the name itself.
The single biggest factor influencing which snack people said they’d choose wasn’t the name’s size association at all, it was who they were buying for and what that person tended to enjoy eating. When asked to pick a snack for a friend who loved hearty, indulgent, fried food, participants were noticeably more likely to choose a product with a bigger sounding fictional name.
On the flip side, when shopping on behalf of someone who preferred lighter meals instead, participants tended to gravitate toward smaller sounding names, even though the underlying product itself hadn’t changed at all. It suggests these sound-based associations act more like a subtle nudge layered on top of someone’s existing preferences, rather than something that overrides personal taste entirely on its own.
Certain fictional names ended up winning people over.
Across the whole study, some fictional names proved considerably more popular than others regardless of context. Teek in particular stood out as an especially well-liked choice among participants, while poor Blorogo consistently struggled to win anyone over, no matter which type of snack it happened to be attached to during testing.
That kind of consistent preference suggests certain invented names simply carry a more universally pleasant sound profile than others, hinting at just how much subtle influence a brand name alone can wield over how appealing a product feels, even when it’s entirely made up and attached to nothing but a description on a page.
This is relevant beyond just a quirky psychology finding.
According to the researchers behind the study, sound symbolism shapes how we perceive the world around us, and this extends specifically to food too. Certain sounds linked to size and weight can meaningfully influence expectations around a food product, even through something as minimal as simply reading its brand name on packaging.
The researchers concluded that language surrounding food products deserves consideration when it comes to understanding both consumer expectations and actual purchase intentions. In other words, the words used to name and market a product aren’t just a branding afterthought, they appear to shape how filling, satisfying or appealing that product feels before anyone’s even opened the packet.
Next time you’re browsing supermarket shelves and one snack name just feels more satisfying than another, it’s important to remember that instinct could be coming from the sound of the name itself, rather than anything printed on the nutrition label.
