ENTOMOTION

BACKGROUND

Since the Industrial Revolution, food abundance in the West has created nutritional and environmental challenges that require a global shift in production and consumption patterns. Entomophagy, or the consumption of insects, is emerging as a promising solution for sustainable food systems, but its acceptance remains low due to cognitive, emotional, and sociocultural barriers. To date, studies have identified certain factors influencing this rejection, such as how insects are presented and individual consumer traits, but none have yet precisely assessed the specific characteristics of insects (physical, sensory, emotional) responsible for their rejection as food.

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GOING THE EXTRA MILE WITH THE SUPPORT OF LABEX CerCoG

The EntoMotion project aims to analyze perceptions of a wide variety of insects across numerous cognitive, emotional, and motivational dimensions in order to identify the causes of food aversion. A lexical database comprising 90 insect names and 185 non-insect animal names is being evaluated among 1,650 to 2,000 representative participants via an online questionnaire. Each word is rated in ecological and dietary contexts across dimensions such as perceived toxicity, emotions, propensity for action, and sensory experiences. Once the data is collected (end of March 2025), the analysis will focus on the perception of insects compared to other animals, differences between insect types, predictive characteristics of their acceptability, and the effect of context. This project will pave the way for future physiological and brain analyses and contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive levers for promoting entomophagy and changing dietary behaviors, with potential applications in communication, marketing, and packaging.