Does Music Influence the Multisensory Tasting Experience
TL;DR: Support is provided for the claim that ambient sound influences taste judgments, and the approach outlined here may help researchers and experience designers to obtain more profound effects of the auditory or multisensory atmosphere.
Abstract: All of the senses can potentially contribute to the perception and experience of food and drink. Sensory influences come both from the food or drink itself, and from the environment in which that food or drink is tasted and consumed. In this study, participants initially had to pair each of three soundtracks with one of three chocolates (varying on the bitter-sweet dimension). In a second part of the study, the impact of the various music samples on these participants’ ratings of the taste of various chocolates was assessed. The results demonstrate that what people hear exerts a significant influence over their rating of the taste of the chocolate. Interestingly, when the results were analysed based on the participants’ individual music-chocolate matches (rather than the average response of the whole group), more robust crossmodal effects were revealed. These results therefore provide support for the claim that ambient sound influences taste judgments, and potentially provide useful insights concerning the future design of multisensory tasting experiences.
Practical Applications
The approach outlined here follows the increasing demand from the field of gastronomy for greater influence over the general multisensory atmosphere surrounding eating/drinking experiences. One of the novel contributions of the present research is to show how, by considering a participant's individual response, further insight for user-studies in gastrophysics may be provided. Increasing the personalization of such experiments in the years to come may help researchers to design individualized “sonic seasoning” experiences that are even more effective. In the future, then, the approach outlined here may help researchers and experience designers to obtain more profound effects of the auditory or multisensory atmosphere.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, Ambient music and background noise are especially important atmospheric elements given their utility given their ubi-bi nature, and the importance of ambient music in retail atmospherics.
Abstract: Retail atmospherics is becoming an increasingly important strategic tool for stores and restaurants. Ambient music and background noise are especially important atmospheric elements given their ubi ...
140 citations
01 Nov 2017-International Journal of Human-computer Studies \/ International Journal of Man-machine Studies
TL;DR: This review, with the focus squarely on the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), summarizes the state-of-the-art in the area and suggests that mixed reality solutions are currently the most plausible as far as delivering flavour experiences digitally is concerned.
Abstract: Review paper assesses the possibilities and pitfalls around the digitization of the chemical senses.Possibilities include delivery of ambient fragrance, digital flavour experiences.We highlight how the majority of the attempts at successful commercialization have failed, often in the face of consumer ambivalence over the perceived benefits/utility.Ultimately, we suggest that mixed reality solutions are currently the most plausible as far as delivering (or rather modulating) flavour experiences digitally is concerned.The identify key problems with digital fragrance delivery related to attention and attribution (i.e., being aware of stimulation and believing that it is doing the work). Many people are understandably excited by the suggestion that the chemical senses can be digitized; be it to deliver ambient fragrances (e.g., in virtual reality or health-related applications), or else to transmit flavour experiences via the internet. However, to date, progress in this area has been surprisingly slow. Furthermore, the majority of the attempts at successful commercialization have failed, often in the face of consumer ambivalence over the perceived benefits/utility. In this review, with the focus squarely on the domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), we summarize the state-of-the-art in the area. We highlight the key possibilities and pitfalls as far as stimulating the so-called lower senses of taste, smell, and the trigeminal system are concerned. Ultimately, we suggest that mixed reality solutions are currently the most plausible as far as delivering (or rather modulating) flavour experiences digitally is concerned. The key problems with digital fragrance delivery are related to attention and attribution. People often fail to detect fragrances when they are concentrating on something else; And even when they detect that their chemical senses have been stimulated, there is always a danger that they attribute their experience (e.g., pleasure) to one of the other senses this is what we call the fundamental attribution error. We conclude with an outlook on digitizing the chemical senses and summarize a set of open-ended questions that the HCI community has to address in future explorations of smell and taste as interaction modalities
97 citations
TL;DR: The latest evidence concerning the various ways in which what the authors hear can influence what they taste leads to the growing realization that the crossmodal influences of music and noise on food perception and consumer behaviour may have some important if, as yet, unrecognized implications for public health.
Abstract: Food product-extrinsic sounds (i.e., those auditory stimuli that are not linked directly to a food or beverage product, or its packaging) have been shown to exert a significant influence over various aspects of food perception and consumer behaviour, often operating outside of conscious awareness. In this review, we summarise the latest evidence concerning the various ways in which what we hear can influence what we taste. According to one line of empirical research, background noise interferes with tasting, due to attentional distraction. A separate body of marketing-relevant research demonstrates that music can be used to bias consumers' food perception, judgments, and purchasing/consumption behaviour in various ways. Some of these effects appear to be driven by the arousal elicited by loud music as well as the entrainment of people's behaviour to the musical beat. However, semantic priming effects linked to the type and style of music are also relevant. Another route by which music influences food perception comes from the observation that our liking/preference for the music that we happen to be listening to carries over to influence our hedonic judgments of what we are tasting. A final route by which hearing influences tasting relates to the emerging field of 'sonic seasoning'. A developing body of research now demonstrates that people often rate tasting experiences differently when listening to soundtracks that have been designed to be (or are chosen because they are) congruent with specific flavour experiences (e.g., when compared to when listening to other soundtracks, or else when tasting in silence). Taken together, such results lead to the growing realization that the crossmodal influences of music and noise on food perception and consumer behaviour may have some important if, as yet, unrecognized implications for public health.
91 citations
TL;DR: A new framework of multisensory flavour integration is proposed focusing not on the food-intrinsic/extrinsics divide, but rather on whether the sensory information is perceived to originate from within or outside the body.
Abstract: When it comes to eating and drinking, multiple factors from diverse sensory modalities have been shown to influence multisensory flavour perception and liking. These factors have heretofore been strictly divided into either those that are intrinsic to the food itself (e.g., food colour, aroma, texture), or those that are extrinsic to it (e.g., related to the packaging, receptacle or external environment). Given the obvious public health need for sugar reduction, the present review aims to compare the relative influences of product-intrinsic and product-extrinsic factors on the perception of sweetness. Evidence of intrinsic and extrinsic sensory influences on sweetness are reviewed. Thereafter, we take a cognitive neuroscience perspective and evaluate how differences may occur in the way that food-intrinsic and extrinsic information become integrated with sweetness perception. Based on recent neuroscientific evidence, we propose a new framework of multisensory flavour integration focusing not on the food-intrinsic/extrinsic divide, but rather on whether the sensory information is perceived to originate from within or outside the body. This framework leads to a discussion on the combinability of intrinsic and extrinsic influences, where we refer to some existing examples and address potential theoretical limitations. To conclude, we provide recommendations to those in the food industry and propose directions for future research relating to the need for long-term studies and understanding of individual differences.
75 citations
Cites background from "Does Music Influence the Multisenso..."
...Similar sonic seasoning effects, specifically involving sweetness, have since been found in a range of food and beverage stimuli ranging from juice to beer, and from chocolate to wine [9,24,25,27,90,91]....
[...]
TL;DR: The effect of soundscapes on the taste evaluation of beers was analyzed in the research reported in this paper, where three experiments were conducted in which participants tasted a beer twice, and rated the experience, each time under the influence of a different sound stimulus.
66 citations
Cites background from "Does Music Influence the Multisenso..."
...Beyond using soundtracks that are made with such gastronomic objectives in mind (see Wang & Spence, 2015, for a comparison of such taste-specific soundtracks), it may also be possible to use, for example, pre-existing songs that were not necessarily produced with such specific objectives in mind, but which can be analyzed with the objective of understanding whether they might have the right sonic signature in order, for example, to modulate the perceived sweetness, bitterness and/or sourness (i.e., Mesz et al., 2012; Reinoso Carvalho et al., 2105c; Reinoso Carvalho et al., submitted for publication-A)....
[...]
...…on the perception of real foods (e.g., Crisinel et al., 2012; Reinoso Carvalho, Van Ee, Touhafi, et al., 2015; Reinoso Carvalho, Van Ee, Rychtarikova, et al., 2015; Reinoso Carvalho et al., 2015; Wang & Spence, 2016) and beverages (Spence, Velasco, & Knoeferle, 2014; Wang & Spence, 2015a, 2015b)....
[...]
...Future studies could focus on gathering more information about the emotional aspects involved in the experience of drinking beer while listening to music that we like versus music we dislike, in order to further analyze such implications of emotion on auditory taste modulation (i.e. Kantono et al., 2016; see Reinoso Carvalho, Touhafi, Steenhaut, Van Ee, & Velasco, submitted for publication-B)....
[...]
...Felipe Reinoso Carvalho a,b,⇑, Qian (Janice) Wang c, Raymond Van Ee b,d,e, Charles Spence c aDepartment of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium bDepartment of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium cCrossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, UK d Philips Research Laboratories, Department of Brain, Body & Behavior, Eindhoven, The Netherlands eDonders Institute, Radboud University, Department of Biophysics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 20 January 2016 Received in revised form 21 March 2016 Accepted 21 March 2016 Available online 24 March 2016 Keywords: Taste Sound Beer Experience design Gastrophysics Perception a b s t r a c t The effect of soundscapes on the taste evaluation of beers was analyzed in the research reported here....
[...]
...It is intriguing, though, that Reinoso Carvalho et al. (submitted for publication-A) reported recently that a beer was perceived as significantly more sour, when consumed while listening to a song, versus when drinking in silence....
[...]
References
More filters
TL;DR: The literature reviewed here supports the view thatCrossmodal correspondences need to be considered alongside semantic and spatiotemporal congruency, among the key constraints that help the authors' brains solve the crossmodal binding problem.
Abstract: In many everyday situations, our senses are bombarded by many different unisensory signals at any given time. To gain the most veridical, and least variable, estimate of environmental stimuli/properties, we need to combine the individual noisy unisensory perceptual estimates that refer to the same object, while keeping those estimates belonging to different objects or events separate. How, though, does the brain “know” which stimuli to combine? Traditionally, researchers interested in the crossmodal binding problem have focused on the roles that spatial and temporal factors play in modulating multisensory integration. However, crossmodal correspondences between various unisensory features (such as between auditory pitch and visual size) may provide yet another important means of constraining the crossmodal binding problem. A large body of research now shows that people exhibit consistent crossmodal correspondences between many stimulus features in different sensory modalities. For example, people consistently match high-pitched sounds with small, bright objects that are located high up in space. The literature reviewed here supports the view that crossmodal correspondences need to be considered alongside semantic and spatiotemporal congruency, among the key constraints that help our brains solve the crossmodal binding problem.
1,133 citations
TL;DR: Results provide the first empirical demonstration that the relative frequency of an irrelevant sound can influence the speed with which participants judge the size of visual stimuli when the sound varies on a trial-by-trial basis along a synesthetically compatible dimension.
Abstract: In the present study, we attempted to demonstrate a synesthetic relationship between auditory frequency and visual size. In Experiment 1, participants performed a speeded visual size discrimination task in which they had to judge whether a variable-sized disk was bigger or smaller than a standard reference disk. A task-irrelevant sound that was either synesthetically congruent with the relative size of the disk (e.g., a low-frequency sound presented with a bigger disk) or synesthetically incongruent with it (e.g., a low-frequency sound presented with a smaller disk) was sometimes presented together with the variable disk. Reaction times were shorter in the synesthetically congruent condition than in the incongruent condition. Verbal labeling and semantic mediation interpretations of this interaction were explored in Experiment 2, in which high- and low-frequency sounds were presented in separate blocks of trials, and in Experiment 3, in which the tones were replaced by the spoken words “high” and “low.” Response priming/bias explanations were ruled out in Experiment 4, in which a synesthetic congruency effect was still reported even when participants made same-versus-different discrimination responses regarding the relative sizes of the two disks. Taken together, these results provide the first empirical demonstration that the relative frequency of an irrelevant sound can influence the speed with which participants judge the size of visual stimuli when the sound varies on a trial-by-trial basis along a synesthetically compatible dimension. The possible cognitive bases for this synesthetic association are also discussed.
231 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report an experiment designed to investigate the consequences of manipulating the pitch of the background auditory stimulation on the taste of food, and provide convincing empirical evidence that the cross-modal congruency of a background soundtrack can be used to modify the taste (and presumably also flavour) of a foodstuff.
164 citations
TL;DR: The association of sweet and sour tastes to high-pitched notes was confirmed and the choice of musical instrument seems to have been driven primarily by a matching of the hedonic value and familiarity of the two types of stimuli.
Abstract: In parallel to studies of various cases of synesthesia, many cross-modal correspondences have also been documented in nonsynesthetes. Among these correspondences, implicit associations between taste and pitch have been reported recently (Crisinel & Spence, 2009, 2010). Here, we replicate and extend these findings through explicit matching of sounds of varying pitch to a range of tastes/flavors. In addition, participants in the experiment reported here also chose the type of musical instrument most appropriate for each taste/flavor. The association of sweet and sour tastes to high-pitched notes was confirmed. By contrast, umami and bitter tastes were preferentially matched to low-pitched notes. Flavors did not display such strong pitch associations. The choice of musical instrument seems to have been driven primarily by a matching of the hedonic value and familiarity of the two types of stimuli. Our results raise important questions about our representation of tastes and flavors and could also lead to applications in the marketing of food products.
162 citations
Additional excerpts
...Intriguing recent research has isolated a number of specific sonic and musical parameters (such as pitch and instrumentation) that can be used to modify tasting experiences (e.g., Bronner et al. 2012; Crisinel and Spence 2009, 2010, 2012; Crisinel et al. 2012)....
[...]
TL;DR: Prior findings concerning specific auditory–gustatory mappings are consolidated, whereby special attention is given to highlighting any conflicts in the existing experimental evidence and any potential caveats with regard to the most appropriate interpretation of prior studies.
Abstract: In this article, the rapidly growing body of research that has been published recently on the topic of crossmodal correspondences that involve auditory and gustatory/flavor stimuli is critically reviewed. The evidence demonstrates that people reliably match different tastes/flavors to auditory stimuli varying in both their psychoacoustic (e.g., pitch) and musical (e.g., timbre) properties. In order to stimulate further progress in this relatively young research field, the present article aims at consolidating prior findings concerning specific auditory–gustatory mappings, whereby special attention is given to highlighting (1) any conflicts in the existing experimental evidence and (2) any potential caveats with regard to the most appropriate interpretation of prior studies. Next, potential mechanisms underlying auditory–gustatory crossmodal correspondences are discussed. Finally, a number of potentially fruitful avenues for future research are outlined.
156 citations