Questionnaires should be the default method in food-related emotion research

This article is part of a virtual special issue (VSI) in Food Quality and Preference on emotion measurement with a particular focus on eating and drinking. We write in response to an invitation to comment on the opinion paper by Schouteten [FQAP, 2020, 104122] titled "Are questionnaires the best way to measure emotions for food products and beverages?" Schouteten concludes that questionnaires, overall, are better suited to this task. We agree. In fact, we go one step further and propose that questionnaires and explicit approaches, in general, can be regarded as the default method for accessing and measuring emotional experiences. They already enjoy widespread use, and we suggest they remain the status quo until stronger arguments emerge in favour of using implicit methods. With technological advances, arguments for more regularly obtaining both explicit and implicit measures of food-related emotions may strengthen, and questionnaires may not remain the default forever. Our commentary is structured around the three questions raised by Schouteten regarding emotion measurement: i) what do we want to measure? ii) how do we measure it? and iii) what is the added value of the measurement?