title: Using sound-taste correspondences to enhance the subjective value of tasting experiences.
abstract: The soundscapes of those places where we eat and drink can influence our perception of taste. Here, we investigated whether contextual sound would enhance the subjective value of a tasting experience. The customers in a chocolate shop were invited to take part in an experiment in which they had to evaluate a chocolate's taste while listening to an auditory stimulus. Four different conditions were presented in a between-participants design. Envisioning a more ecological approach, a pre-recorded piece of popular music and the shop's own soundscape were used as the sonic stimuli. The results revealed that not only did the customers report having a significantly better tasting experience when the sounds were presented as part of the food's identity, but they were also willing to pay significantly more for the experience. The method outlined here paves a new approach to dealing with the design of multisensory tasting experiences, and gastronomic situations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Informatics - ETRO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels, Belgium ; Department of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Felipe
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Reinoso Carvalho
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium ; Department of Biophysics, Donders Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands ; Philips Research Laboratories, Department of Brain, Body and Behavior Eindhoven, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Van Ee
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Acoustics, Division of Soft Matter and Biophysics, KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Monika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rychtarikova
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Informatics - ETRO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Abdellah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Touhafi
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Informatics - ETRO, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kris
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Steenhaut
authors.affiliation: The Chocolate Line Bruges, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Persoone
authors.affiliation: Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Spence
keywords: experience design; gastrophysics; music; perception; sound; taste