Figure 4
A scatter plot representing the relationship between the usefulness of MEC and affective intensity for different food categories. The plot includes several data points, each representing a specific food category. The horizontal axis indicates affective intensity, ranging from low to high, while the vertical axis shows the usefulness of MEC, also ranging from low to high. The plot is divided into four quadrants, with the upper-right quadrant labeled as the High Impact Zone. Each data point is color-coded to indicate the dominant psychological barrier associated with the category, such as disgust, impurity, contamination, efficacy skepticism, ethical concern, waste concern, unfamiliarity, and trust. Notable clusters include categories like novel proteins, biotechnologies/GM, eco-innovations/circular foods, processing innovations, fortified/functional products, packaging-based innovations, and traditional foods from third countries.Usefulness of MEC as applied to unfamiliar and new categories by affective intensity