Besides the novelty bias you've identified, I also think there's a context bias. Products that make a lasting impact on our lives do so by fitting into the context of our lives - they are well-adapted to the situation in which they will eventually be used. Products that demo well fit into the context of a demo - they look splashy and exciting when shown to a set of observers who are specifically judging the product. The set of qualities optimized for each of these situations differs.
I realised later, that most flat panels are optimized to look good on the brightly lighted stores, they have high brightness and saturation, and look brilliant. Even at home at first they look better than the old CRTs... until on daily usage I get annoyed with their poor contrast and colour reproduction.
Yes, on the store a red looking extra red looks good... but when you see on the screen a photo of a relative and their shamed pink face became a monstrous mess of bright yellow and red, then you realised it doesn't look so good...
EDIT: Fixed ortography
Factor in weight (that big old workstation monitor weighed something like 75 pounds, and I hurt my back bringing it down the stairs when I finally got rid of it) and LCD is a no-brainer improvement over CRT. I have no desire to go back to CRTs.
Going the other direction, the Acer Predator XB321HK is a 32" 16:9 (I'm not a fan of the ultra-wide stuff) 4K screen with great picture and GSync if you play games with Green Team's GPUs. It's over a grand and only does 60hz, but it's a big nice 4K panel and it's not a TV.
Lastly, you have things like the Dell P4317Q, which is targeted at stock traders. It's a 43" 4K screen for a relatively-affordable $1350 with a proper DisplayPort input. I nearly got this instead of my Vizio P55-C1 (which is the only IPS screen of all the 2016 Vizio P series), but I liked that the Vizio did 120hz, but I'm disappointed about the lack of real 4:4:4 chroma and the resultant blurry text. Still, if you want a huge desktop monitor, the Dell might be the way to go. The Philips BDM4350UC is about the same as the Dell, and has a lot of discussion here: https://hardforum.com/threads/philips-bdm4350uc-43-inch-4k-i...
Twilio's demos have always been fantastic and their product in actual use is as well.
So one night we decided to put his claims to test: he was summarily sent to basement with a few friends; while the remainder of us prepared the samples in the kitchen.
We (preparers) then left the room while he sampled and wrote down his choices - as double-blind as we can make it.
He was wrong even more than random guessing would've allowed; and the video of his confident, but entirely erroneous reports are still an amusing viewing amongst our group :)
Mind you, he still claims superiority of one product and his ability to tell. But time again, these claims don't bear testing...
Well, the point of the article is that there are many people who claim that they can do such things, but when they're put to the test...can't.
Have you actually tested yourself, or do you just assume you can do it?
It reminds me a lot of this:
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/
In short: Richard Clarke, an audio guru, put his own money up to reward people who could tell the difference in sound quality, consistently, between two level-matched amplifiers of varying price. No one has passed. Audiophiles have been complaining about it for years.
Sure they made it to promote their product and I guess there is no money involved. But in the end they show your scores and the % of all tests. If you take out the "don't know" it is near 50/50.
In blind tests, people generally preferred the sweeter Pepsi. In unblinded tests, people preferred the incredibly brand-dominant Coke.
This whole thing is a case study on brand perception, not sensory perception.
[edit] typo
The second thing is that "proper experiment" I mentioned. It's one thing to tell someone they're getting Coke and Pepsi. It's another to tell them they get two new products (but actually Coke and Pepsi). Yet another to tell them they're getting Coke and Pepsi and give them generic-cola-1 and -2. All of those may tell you something interesting.
Check the paper "Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi" - people actually can't identify the brand properly.
starts reading
Holy broken English Batman!
checks author names
Ah. Ok.
Interesting that respondents seem to be using "sweetness" as a stand-in for "how much I like it". I'd class Coke as a fair bit drier than Pepsi—still quite sweet, but noticeably less so than Pepsi. The "open" version of responses, though, rate Coke as much sweeter.
I don't get measuring the "caffeine" perception, but maybe I'm just unusual in not knowing what caffeine _per se_ tastes like? Possibly something's being lost in translation (so to speak) here.
I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
Interesting that "can't identify" went up with Coca Cola. I definitely find both its nose and flavor to be milder than Pepsi, so I guess that makes sense.
(for the record, I go for Coke over Pepsi, which you'd have to pay me to drink, though even Coke wears out its welcome with me after a half-dozen ounces or so)
If you serve it cold enough most people can't tell the difference between coke and 7up.
I used to drink a ton of Coke and I guarantee I could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. These days I rarely drink soda, and while I think I could tell the difference, I could probably be fooled.
Dr. Pepper I think has a more distinctive taste but my point is that your experience may not line up with what most people expect and you may in fact have an above average sense of smell and/or taste.
Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
> Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
So possibly I'm a soda-only super-smeller/taster. Ha, there's a handy skill. :-(
[EDIT] if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime. It's not exactly gonna be hard to tell which one you're dealing with, even if the sample's the same size and you're blindfolded. Throw in a half-dozen other citrus fruits and yeah, I could see getting a couple of them wrong but just those two? No. Judging from the reaction here, though, I'm starting to wonder if I need to re-evaluate my sense of smell/taste. Maybe it's not only farther from normal than I thought, but in the opposite direction.
One thing you might not be realizing is that many people have absolutely shot their palates with modern flavorings, sugar bombing, etc. (though these days, smoking at least is less of a thing). I too don't have trouble telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi (and have done it blind), but if you took away visual cues, I think you'd be surprised how many people would bilge even the orange/lime test.
It turns out that they are not the same, and there's a reason lots of people order whiskey and coke and nobody orders whiskey and pepsi.
It was not better.
To me at least, Coke has more citrus notes and is a bit more sour. RC, at least in the US is slightly more bitter and also seems to have a slightly sweet aftertaste, but not that different from Coke. Pepsi is more sweeter as well, and doesn't have the citrus hit.
The more interesting difference is Sugar cane Coke, like they have in Australia, and Corn Syrup. They are both equally sweet, IMO, but the corn syrup has a different aftertaste and texture. Still mostly identical.
> The results usually have Pepsi wiping the floor with Coke
That study says nothing about inability to differentiate tastes, only a disparity between taste preference and brand preference.
I never really understood the point of the Pepsi Challenge until I went to the US and had HFCS Coke, which tastes much more like Pepsi. The same is true of Coke Zero, which the ads here loudly proclaim "tastes just like regular Coke". Yeah, regular HFCS Coke, not sugar Coke. Yuck.
I think a lot of it is just which taste you're accustomed to.
On the other hand, I tend not to drink pop for long periods on end. My first pop in a long while always tastes incredibly syrupy, to the point where it's borderline unpalatable. If I have more than a couple of pops in a short period it starts tasting like what I 'remember' it tasting like.
I don't get why you say it has greater carbonation. The carbonation in Coke gives a harsher feel, which I tend to dislike other than when its hot and I'm very thirsty. Pepsi gets frothier, and is more mellow, but in overall levels of carbonation I don't think there's much difference.
The only other cola than Pepsi I'll sip is RC, which has a strong caramel undertone.
Coke is bitter in the wrong ways. I can't describe it any better than that, I love IPAs so it's not like I'm against bitter drinks but give me a Pepsi any day.
I mean I truly don't care that much in the end, I'm definitely not one of those silly who will refuse one or the other, but it's not just about the initial sip being better.
I do it for two reasons:
I don't really like any Pepsi products, Sierra Mist is ok, I guess.
I shouldn't be having soda anyway. So on the very rare time I order a Coke and they say they only have Pepsi it's my excuse not to have it at all.
To me, for lack of a better word, Coke has "harsher" bubbles that somehow drown out the sweetness. Which is why a can of Coke that's been open for an hour is way too sweet to me.
Hayward Kiwi (the most common commercial variety in the US) are harvested fairly hard at about 6 Brix (approximately percent dissolved solids assuming those solids are sucrose) and ripen up to about 12-14 Brix.[1]
Strawberries are usually 8-10 Brix, but a peak of the season fully ripe (and delicious) modern variety like Seascape or Tristar might be 12-14 Brix[2], the same as a fully ripe kiwifruit.
[1] https://thebenjamin.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/harvesting-kiwi...
[2] Sorry, I'm not immediately finding a good cite for this one. I've personally measured a bunch, though.
http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c...
http://www.pepsicobeveragefacts.com/Home/Product?formula=350...
Be sure to click the 20 oz button on the Coke page (can't deep link to a particular size).
So that anecdote is bullshit. Everyone with refined tastebuds knows that Pepsi taste like sweetened dishwasher liquid and Coke is much more spiced and refined with notes of bitter vanilla, nutmeg, and pepper. Pepsi is what people who eat Doritos and Mountain Dew prefer, ie. they don't care what they consume.
I think I see what you did there.
Once those differences have been normalised we stop feeling the same way about them, and become attracted to other things just because they are novel. This is why it's often better to call a mix 'done' before you start believing it's completely wrong and tearing it apart again, only to prefer the old version.
Anyway, my first impression of new music often doesn't match what my later opinion will be after listening more.
Also, very catchy albums that immediately grab me rarely prove to have long-term listenability for me. An example would be the Postal Service album, I remember thinking that was really catchy and great, but after a few listens I hated it.
I've noticed with sensory inputs in general that the things that impress you immediately, and the things that impress you once your brain has adjusted to the input and has settled in, are different. For the visual example, observe the difference between the settings on the TVs in the store vs. what the community will generally agree is the optimal long-term setting for your TV. Also, while the first ten minutes of a 3D movie may be pretty whiz-bang, I've generally stopped noticing it's in 3D by the end.
I think in both cases, our initial preferences are for something sharper and exaggerating the differences, but over the long term that becomes quite tiring. A case could probably be made even for smell; in the store the strong, unusual perfume may be very impressive but if you are going to use it all day long, I prefer to be around people who use something a lot more subtle.