Tastes like home: a qualitative study exploring the role of affective history on cognition through cooking

Cooking is often associated with emotional associations that shape our subjective experiences, yet the role of affective history in guiding cognition during everyday tasks remains underexplored. In this paper, we present two qualitative studies that examine how personally meaningful recipes evoke memory, shape perception, and guide action during food preparation. In Study 1, six participants asynchronously prepared their own and others’ emotionally significant recipes under varying conditions of awareness (knowing vs. not knowing a recipe’s significance). Thematic analysis of the data from semi-structured interviews was carried out. Participants shared how personal history, implicit social dynamics, and their perceptions of the task and context informed their experiences, even without direct interaction with its owner. Study 2 brought two participants from Study 1 together to prepare each other’s recipes in a live, interactive setting. Thematic analysis highlighted how, for our dyad, real-time storytelling and cooking fostered worldbuilding, comfort, trust, and intimacy, and evolving shared attention, illustrating how embodied collaboration can facilitate deeper engagement with another’s affective world. Both studies offered insight into how emotionally laden histories and social interaction can jointly influence cognitive experience. Our findings extend affective-cognitive theories beyond the lab, suggesting that food preparation - often overlooked in cognitive research - can serve as a rich site for understanding how affect, memory, and social context intertwine in shaping everyday cognition. This work opens avenues for future research into how personal and cultural meaning modulate attention, action, and interpersonal connection in dynamic, real-world contexts.