Texture of food plays a determining role in food liking. Foods with textures perceived as negative are often avoided more than positively-connotated textures are sought out signifying negativity bias. The first objective of the present research was to quantitatively determine whether consumers’ food choices are motivated more by avoiding disliked food textures or seeking out liked food textures. An adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis survey was created to ascertain which food textures drive consumer choice behavior. In total, 30 attributes within 8 overall texture categories were assessed by 54 adults. Hierarchical Bayes estimation calculated utility scores (part-worths) for each of the 30 attributes and importance scores for the 8 categories. The survey also retrieved information regarding whether any of these 30 attributes were “unacceptable” or “must-have” textures. The results of a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the most important texture categories were mouthfeel, particulate, and bite resistance signaling that these categories were driving consumers’ choice and that attributes within the groups were most relevant in decision-making. Across all participants, 137 attributes were identified as unacceptable. The distribution of unacceptable attributes across textural categories was uneven (χ2= 321.73; p<0.001) with most unacceptables falling within the first, second, and third most important categories for each participant. No must-have attributes were selected in the survey, indicating participants place less weight on positive textures. This conjoint survey was further utilized in Objective 2 to assess the selectivity (pickiness) of children toward food textures. Three children populations aged 10-15 were sampled: neurotypical non-picky, neurotypical picky with food texture, and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are picky with food texture. Three metrics were assessed to quantify selectivity. The first was the number of unacceptables a child chose. The second metric was the number of times a child selected “A possibility” on a screener question. Lastly, overall None utility was calculated (an indication of how likely a participant was to choose no option over the options provided in the screener portion of the survey). Importance scores of each textural category were also evaluated across groups. Through a one-way ANOVA, None utility was found to be significantly different across groups (p=0.013), with the ASD and neurotypical picky populations having a larger None utility compared to the neurotypical non-picky group. Number of unacceptables and “A possibility” counts did not reach statistical significance across the three groups. Due to low sample size of the group of picky children with ASD (n=6), the two neurotypical groups were also assessed by unpaired, t-tests. The None utility score was significantly different (p=0.0044), and the number of unacceptables approached significance (p=0.076). These metrics show promise in quantitatively defining selectivity. Through a mixed model ANOVA across groups, no significant differences were found between the three groups’ average importance scores (p=0.508). Although the survey provided many tools to assess texture selectivity, the results do not enable mechanistic studies focused on the potential cause for pickiness. Objective 3 assessed tactile sensitivity as a potential mechanism underpinning textural pickiness. Each child in the two neurotypical populations participated in 3 psychophysical protocols. Suprathreshold sensitivity testing was performed with roughness stimuli (roughened metal bars), pointiness stimuli (3D-printed plastic tiles), and viscosity solutions made of xanthan and water. Five stimuli made up each protocol, and they were rated on an 11-point scale with anchors for how rough, thick, or pointy they felt. Area under the curve measurements were carried out for each protocol, so each child had an AUC score for roughness, pointiness, and viscosity. A mixed model ANOVA uncovered no significant differences between the groups’ sensitivities to pointiness, roughness, and viscosity respectively (p=0.463, p=0.917, p=0.456). Research objective 4 was proposed to correlate tactile sensitivity measures to selectivity survey data and further create a model for overall pickiness. This is where it was apparent that parent reporting of child pickiness was prone to error due to bias. Different regroupings of the children by unacceptables chosen or by median utility scores provided insight into other techniques that could be used to analyze the survey data and sensitivity data in a more objective way. A principal components analysis confirmed that these tactile sensitivity scores (AUCs) were not significantly contributing to overall pickiness of a child. Another PCA was run solely with selectivity data, and an overall pickiness equation was extracted. The selectivity scores from the conjoint survey were found to be highly predictive of overall pickiness. Each child received a pickiness score directly related to their 3 selectivity metric scores (None utility, number of unacceptables, “A possibility” count). The average overall pickiness scores were -0.46, 0.34, and 0.76 for the neurotypical non-picky, neurotypical picky, and population with ASD respectively. The culmination of this work suggests that negative textures drive food decisions for both adults and children. It also validates conjoint analysis as a tool to parse populations of eaters with different selectivity levels. The psychophysical measures prove practical for specific work identifying roughness, viscosity, and pointiness sensitivities, but not as contributors for overall pickiness. With this information, product developers may switch to prioritizing the modification or removal of negative textures from their product. Care providers may also be better informed from the conjoint survey results about what textures are driving eating behavior and what to tell families to feed their child. Lastly, there is a need for more psychophysical protocols to help characterize and contribute to overall textural pickiness.