{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,6]],"date-time":"2026-06-06T05:01:19Z","timestamp":1780722079770,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,3]],"date-time":"2026-06-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1780444800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Behavioral Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Cross-modal correspondence, a cross-sensory cognitive phenomenon, reveals the link between visual forms and taste experiences. Although research on Western alphabetic typography is extensive, the Chinese character system has received less attention. This study systematically examines Chinese typeface categories (Song, Hei, Yuan, and Calligraphic) and stroke thickness (bold, medium, thin) in a real packaging context. The effects on the expectancies of the five flavors\u2014sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and salty\u2014were measured. The results showed a significant interaction effect between typeface category and stroke thickness for all five flavor dimensions. The rounded Yuan typeface with thin strokes tended toward sweetness. Bold Song typefaces tend toward bitterness or spiciness, while bold Hei typefaces tend toward saltiness. The Calligraphic typeface, with its complex visual features, is strongly associated with bitterness and spiciness only when paired with bold strokes. Sourness shows a reverse modulation pattern. These findings reveal that the visual features of Chinese typefaces shape gustatory crossmodal correspondences through interactive modulation rather than simple linear addition. This confirms the common cross-modal perceptual pattern of \u2018curvature-sweetness, angularity-non-sweetness\u2019 across Chinese and English writing systems while also reflecting the culturally specific patterns driven by Chinese typographic features (such as the bifeng structure at stroke terminals) and the unique phenomenon of cross-modal correspondence with spiciness. This provides an empirically grounded and culturally adaptive reference for the marketing application of Chinese typefaces in packaging contexts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/bs16060913","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,4]],"date-time":"2026-06-04T03:37:29Z","timestamp":1780544249000},"page":"913","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Sweet Round, Spicy Sharp: How Chinese Typeface Features Trick the Tongue into Tasting Five Flavors"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7652-8723","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chunfa","family":"Sha","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Industrial Design, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0008-2703-9323","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yunxiao","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Industrial Design, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8426-318X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qi","family":"Zhong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Industrial Design, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Haojing","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rong","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Industrial Design, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2926","DOI":"10.1016\/j.visres.2005.06.013","article-title":"Serifs and font legibility","volume":"45","author":"Arditi","year":"2005","journal-title":"Vision Research"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Bringhurst, R. 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