Multisensory Flavor Perception

doi:10.1016/J.CELL.2015.03.007

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Multisensory Flavor Perception

Journal Article•DOI•

Multisensory Flavor Perception

Charles Spence¹•Institutions (1)

University of Oxford¹

26 Mar 2015-Cell (Elsevier)-Vol. 161, Iss: 1, pp 24-35

TL;DR: This Perspective explores the contributions of distinct senses to the authors' perception of food and the growing realization that the same rules of multisensory integration that have been thoroughly explored in interactions between audition, vision, and touch may also explain the combination of the (admittedly harder to study) flavor senses.

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About: This article is published in Cell.The article was published on 2015-03-26 and is currently open access. It has received 279 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Multisensory integration & Perception.

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Journal Article•DOI•

Crossmodal correspondences between taste and shape, and their implications for product packaging: A review

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Carlos Velasco, Andy T. Woods¹, Olivia Petit, Adrian David Cheok, Charles Spence¹ - Show less +1 more•Institutions (1)

University of Oxford¹

01 Sep 2016-Food Quality and Preference

TL;DR: In this paper, a review of the literature on cross-modal correspondences between tastes and shape features is presented, which suggests that they can inform the design process when it comes to product packages and labels with the aim of conveying taste information more effectively.

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132 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Not All Flavor Expertise Is Equal: The Language of Wine and Coffee Experts

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Ilja Croijmans¹, Asifa Majid¹, Asifa Majid²•Institutions (2)

Radboud University Nijmegen¹, Max Planck Society²

20 Jun 2016-PLOS ONE

TL;DR: It is found expertise endows a modest advantage in smell and flavor naming, and experts only have a limited, domain-specific advantage when communicating about smells and flavors.

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Abstract: People in Western cultures are poor at naming smells and flavors. However, for wine and coffee experts, describing smells and flavors is part of their daily routine. So are experts better than lay people at conveying smells and flavors in language? If smells and flavors are more easily linguistically expressed by experts, or more "codable", then experts should be better than novices at describing smells and flavors. If experts are indeed better, we can also ask how general this advantage is: do experts show higher codability only for smells and flavors they are expert in (i.e., wine experts for wine and coffee experts for coffee) or is their linguistic dexterity more general? To address these questions, wine experts, coffee experts, and novices were asked to describe the smell and flavor of wines, coffees, everyday odors, and basic tastes. The resulting descriptions were compared on a number of measures. We found expertise endows a modest advantage in smell and flavor naming. Wine experts showed more consistency in how they described wine smells and flavors than coffee experts, and novices; but coffee experts were not more consistent for coffee descriptions. Neither expert group was any more accurate at identifying everyday smells or tastes. Interestingly, both wine and coffee experts tended to use more source-based terms (e.g., vanilla) in descriptions of their own area of expertise whereas novices tended to use more evaluative terms (e.g., nice). However, the overall linguistic strategies for both groups were en par. To conclude, experts only have a limited, domain-specific advantage when communicating about smells and flavors. The ability to communicate about smells and flavors is a matter not only of perceptual training, but specific linguistic training too.

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80 citations

Cites background from "Multisensory Flavor Perception"

..., the multisensory experience in the mouth including gustatory, olfactory, and somatosensory sensations; [1,2])....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Mood, Anxiety and Olfactory Dysfunction in COVID-19: Evidence of Central Nervous System Involvement?

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Marlene M. Speth, Thirza Singer-Cornelius, Michael Oberle, Isabelle Gengler¹, Steffi J. Brockmeier, Ahmad R. Sedaghat¹ - Show less +2 more•Institutions (1)

University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center¹

01 Nov 2020-Laryngoscope

TL;DR: The objective of this study was to determine the burden of depressed mood and anxiety in COVID‐19, and associated disease characteristics.

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Abstract: OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to determine the burden of depressed mood and anxiety in COVID-19, and associated disease characteristics MATERIALS AND METHODS This is a prospective, cross-sectional study of 114 COVID-19 positive patients diagnosed using RT-PCR-based testing over a 6-week period The two-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2) and the two-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder questionnaire (GAD-2) were used to measure depressed mood and anxiety level, respectively, at enrollment and for participants' baseline, pre-COVID-19 state Severity of smell loss, loss of taste, nasal obstruction, rhinorrhea/mucus production, fever, cough, and shortness of breath (SOB) during COVID-19 were assessed RESULTS PHQ-2 and GAD-2 significantly (P < 001) increased from baseline to enrollment PHQ-2 was associated with smell loss (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] = 140, 95% CI, 110-178, P = 006), age (aIRR = 102, 95% CI, 101-104, P = 006), and baseline PHQ-2 score (aIRR = 139, 95% CI, 109-176, P = 007) GAD-2 score was associated with smell loss (aIRR = 129, 95% CI, 102-162, P = 035), age (aIRR = 102, 95% CI, 101-104, P = 025) and baseline GAD-2 score (aIRR = 155, 95% CI, 124-193, P < 001) Loss of taste also exhibited similar associations with PHQ-2 and GAD-2 PHQ-2 and GAD-2 scores were not associated with severities of any other symptoms during the COVID-19 course CONCLUSIONS Despite the occurrence of symptoms-such as SOB-associated with severe manifestations of COVID-19, only the severities of smell and taste loss were associated with depressed mood and anxiety These results may raise the novel possibility of emotional disturbance as a CNS manifestation of COVID-19 given trans-olfactory tract penetration of the central nervous system (CNS) by coronaviruses LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 3 Laryngoscope, 130:2520-2525, 2020

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76 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Multisensory Technology for Flavor Augmentation: A Mini Review

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Carlos Velasco¹, Marianna Obrist², Olivia Petit³, Charles Spence⁴•Institutions (4)

BI Norwegian Business School¹, University of Sussex², Inseec Business School³, University of Oxford⁴

30 Jan 2018-Frontiers in Psychology

TL;DR: The role of (extrinsic) visual, auditory, and haptic/tactile elements in modulating flavor perception and more generally, the authors' food and drink experiences is focused on.

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Abstract: There is growing interest in the development of new technologies that capitalize on our emerging understanding of the multisensory influences on flavor perception in order to enhance human-food interaction design. This review focuses on the role of (extrinsic) visual, auditory, and haptic/tactile elements in modulating flavor perception and more generally, our food and drink experiences. We review some of the most exciting examples of recent multisensory technologies for augmenting such experiences. Here, we discuss applications for these technologies, for example, in the field of food experience design, in the support of healthy eating, and in the rapidly-growing world of sensory marketing. However, as the review makes clear, while there are many opportunities for novel human-food interaction design, there are also a number of challenges that will need to be tackled before new technologies can be meaningfully integrated into our everyday food and drink experiences.

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74 citations

Cites background from "Multisensory Flavor Perception"

...Importantly, though, eating and drinking constitute some of life’s most multisensory experiences (e.g., involving color, shape, sound, vibration, texture roughness, etc., Spence, 2015a)....
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...Whilst research on the principles governing multisensory integration during flavor perception is ongoing (see Prescott, 2015; Spence, 2015a), design guidelines have nevertheless been suggested (Schifferstein and Desmet, 2008; Velasco et al., 2016a)....
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...Vision is critical when it comes to setting our flavor expectations and hence modifying our flavor experiences (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2015; Spence et al., 2016)....
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...…1 January 2018 | Volume 9 | Article 26 science (e.g., considering the guiding principles of multisensory flavor perception, e.g., Prescott, 2015; Spence, 2015a) and technology in systems capable of augmenting flavor perception can impact what people choose to eat and drink, how they perceive…...
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...The key idea here is that flavor is a multisensory construct (involving taste, or gustation, olfaction, and possibly also trigeminal components; see Kakutani et al., 2017) and all the senses can potentially influence the way in which we experience it (Spence, 2015a)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Associative learning changes cross-modal representations in the gustatory cortex

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Roberto Vincis¹, Alfredo Fontanini¹•Institutions (1)

Stony Brook University¹

30 Aug 2016-eLife

TL;DR: The results show that the gustatory cortex represents cross- modal stimuli according to their sensory identity, and that learning changes the overlap of cross-modal representations.

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Abstract: A growing body of literature has demonstrated that primary sensory cortices are not exclusively unimodal, but can respond to stimuli of different sensory modalities. However, several questions concerning the neural representation of cross-modal stimuli remain open. Indeed, it is poorly understood if cross-modal stimuli evoke unique or overlapping representations in a primary sensory cortex and whether learning can modulate these representations. Here we recorded single unit responses to auditory, visual, somatosensory, and olfactory stimuli in the gustatory cortex (GC) of alert rats before and after associative learning. We found that, in untrained rats, the majority of GC neurons were modulated by a single modality. Upon learning, both prevalence of cross-modal responsive neurons and their breadth of tuning increased, leading to a greater overlap of representations. Altogether, our results show that the gustatory cortex represents cross-modal stimuli according to their sensory identity, and that learning changes the overlap of cross-modal representations.

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70 citations

Cites background from "Multisensory Flavor Perception"

...The experience of eating is inherently multimodal, involving the integration of gustatory, somatosensory and olfactory signals in a single percept called ’flavor’ (Katz et al., 2001; De Araujo and Rolls, 2004; Spence, 2015)....
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References

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Journal Article•DOI•

Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks

[...]

Samuel M. McClure¹, Jian Li¹, Damon Tomlin¹, Kim S. Cypert¹, Latané M. Montague¹, P. Read Montague¹ - Show less +2 more•Institutions (1)

Baylor College of Medicine¹

14 Oct 2004-Neuron

TL;DR: A consistent neural response in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was reported that correlated with subjects' behavioral preferences for Coke and Pepsi and brand knowledge for one of the drinks had a dramatic influence on expressed behavioral preferences and on the measured brain responses.

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1,174 citations

"Multisensory Flavor Perception" refers background in this paper

...Certainly, there is good evidence to suggest that our cognitive expectations regarding taste or flavor can have a profound influence on some of the earliest neural sites where olfactory and gustatory information are first processed (see Grabenhorst et al., 2008; McClure et al., 2004; Plassmann et al., 2008)....
[...]
...…there is good evidence to suggest that our cognitive expectations regarding taste or flavor can have a profound influence on some of the earliest neural sites where olfactory and gustatory information are first processed (see Grabenhorst et al., 2008; McClure et al., 2004; Plassmann et al., 2008)....
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Book•

The Handbook of Multisensory Processing

[...]

Gemma A. Calvert, Charles Spence, Barry E. Stein

01 Jan 2004

TL;DR: This landmark reference work brings together for the first time in one volume the most recent research from different areas of the emerging field of multisensory integration with broad underlying principles that govern this interaction, regardless of the specific senses involved.

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Abstract: This landmark reference work brings together for the first time in one volume the most recent research from different areas of the emerging field of multisensory integration. After many years of using a modality-specific "sense-by-sense" approach, researchers across different disciplines in neuroscience and psychology now recognize that perception is fundamentally a multisensory experience. To understand how the brain synthesizes information from the different senses, we must study not only how information from each sensory modality is decoded but also how this information interacts with the sensory processing taking place within other sensory channels. The findings cited in The Handbook of Multisensory Processes suggest that there are broad underlying principles that govern this interaction, regardless of the specific senses involved.The book is organized thematically into eight sections; each of the 55 chapters presents a state-of-the-art review of its topic by leading researchers in the field. The key themes addressed include multisensory contributions to perception in humans; whether the sensory integration involved in speech perception is fundamentally different from other kinds of multisensory integration; multisensory processing in the midbrain and cortex in model species, including rat, cat, and monkey; behavioral consequences of multisensory integration; modern neuroimaging techniques, including EEG, PET, and fMRI, now being used to reveal the many sites of multisensory processing in the brain; multisensory processes that require postnatal sensory experience to emerge, with examples from multiple species; brain specialization and possible equivalence of brain regions; and clinical studies of such breakdowns of normal sensory integration as brain damage and synesthesia.

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1,026 citations

"Multisensory Flavor Perception" refers background in this paper

...…of the same neural principles known to constrain the integration of the spatial senses of vision, audition, and touch (see Bremner et al., 2012; Calvert et al., 2004; Stein, 2012 for reviews) might also help to explain the integration of sensory cues giving rise to the multisensory flavor…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness

[...]

Hilke Plassmann¹, John P. O'Doherty¹, Baba Shiv², Antonio Rangel¹•Institutions (2)

California Institute of Technology¹, Stanford University²

22 Jan 2008-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

TL;DR: Evidence is provided for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.

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Abstract: Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.

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932 citations

"Multisensory Flavor Perception" refers background in this paper

...Certainly, there is good evidence to suggest that our cognitive expectations regarding taste or flavor can have a profound influence on some of the earliest neural sites where olfactory and gustatory information are first processed (see Grabenhorst et al., 2008; McClure et al., 2004; Plassmann et al., 2008)....
[...]
...…there is good evidence to suggest that our cognitive expectations regarding taste or flavor can have a profound influence on some of the earliest neural sites where olfactory and gustatory information are first processed (see Grabenhorst et al., 2008; McClure et al., 2004; Plassmann et al., 2008)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

Changing human behavior to prevent disease: The importance of targeting automatic processes.

[...]

Theresa M. Marteau¹, Gareth J Hollands¹, Paul C. Fletcher¹•Institutions (1)

University of Cambridge¹

21 Sep 2012-Science

TL;DR: It is proposed that interventions targeting these automatic bases of behaviors may be more effective and ways to determine whether and how interventions that target automatic processes can enhance global efforts to prevent disease are suggested.

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Abstract: Much of the global burden of disease is associated with behaviors—overeating, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity—that people recognize as health-harming and yet continue to engage in, even when undesired consequences emerge. To date, interventions aimed at changing such behaviors have largely encouraged people to reflect on their behaviors. These approaches are often ineffectual, which is in keeping with the observation that much human behavior is automatic, cued by environmental stimuli, resulting in actions that are largely unaccompanied by conscious reflection. We propose that interventions targeting these automatic bases of behaviors may be more effective. We discuss specific interventions and suggest ways to determine whether and how interventions that target automatic processes can enhance global efforts to prevent disease.

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692 citations

"Multisensory Flavor Perception" refers background in this paper

...…of the latest insights (e.g., increasing perceived sweetness by changing the color of food or by changing the color of the plateware on which it is served) can be utilized to help nudge consumers toward healthier food behaviors (Spence and Piqueras-Fiszman, 2014; see also Marteau et al., 2012)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Taste-olfactory convergence, and the representation of the pleasantness of flavour, in the human brain

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Ivan E. de Araujo¹, Edmund T. Rolls¹, Morten L. Kringelbach², Morten L. Kringelbach¹, Francis McGlone³, Nicola Phillips³ - Show less +2 more•Institutions (3)

University of Oxford¹, John Radcliffe Hospital², Bangor University³

01 Oct 2003-European Journal of Neuroscience

TL;DR: An event‐related fMRI study investigates where in the human brain these interactions between taste and odour stimuli (administered retronasally) may be realized, and provides evidence on the neural substrate for the convergence of taste and olfactory stimuli to produce flavour in humans.

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Abstract: The functional architecture of the central taste and olfactory systems in primates provides evidence that the convergence of taste and smell information onto single neurons is realized in the caudal orbitofrontal cortex (and immediately adjacent agranular insula). These higher-order association cortical areas thus support flavour processing. Much less is known, however, about homologous regions in the human cortex, or how taste-odour interactions, and thus flavour perception, are implemented in the human brain. We performed an event-related fMRI study to investigate where in the human brain these interactions between taste and odour stimuli (administered retronasally) may be realized. The brain regions that were activated by both taste and smell included parts of the caudal orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, insular cortex and adjoining areas, and anterior cingulate cortex. It was shown that a small part of the anterior (putatively agranular) insula responds to unimodal taste and to unimodal olfactory stimuli, and that a part of the anterior frontal operculum is a unimodal taste area (putatively primary taste cortex) not activated by olfactory stimuli. Activations to combined olfactory and taste stimuli where there was little or no activation to either alone (providing positive evidence for interactions between the olfactory and taste inputs) were found in a lateral anterior part of the orbitofrontal cortex. Correlations with consonance ratings for the smell and taste combinations, and for their pleasantness, were found in a medial anterior part of the orbitofrontal cortex. These results provide evidence on the neural substrate for the convergence of taste and olfactory stimuli to produce flavour in humans, and where the pleasantness of flavour is represented in the human brain.

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556 citations

"Multisensory Flavor Perception" refers background in this paper

...The participants in one influential neuroimaging study of multisensory flavor perception had to lie still in a scanner while rating the pleasantness and congruency of various different pairings of orthonasal olfactory and gustatory stimuli (de Araujo et al., 2003)....
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...…stimuli (and possibly also visual stimuli) that lead to multisensory enhancement (or suppression, when the taste and smell don’t match; see, e.g., de Araujo et al., 2003) depends on the combination of ingredients and, hence, of sensory cues that tend to co-occur Cell 161, March 26, 2015 ª2015…...
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