Our evaluation of food does not only involve the sense of taste, but is also profoundly influenced by information from the other senses (such as olfaction, vision, touch, audition, and the trigeminal sense). Among these multisensory interactions, the existence of auditory influences on taste perception is the one that has been treated most sceptically (Delwiche, 2004), and has garnered the least scientific interest (though see Spence, Shankar, & Blumenthal, in press). However, Beeli et al. (2005) recently reported a case study of an in individual exhibiting synaesthesia between sounds and tastes. ‘Normal’ people’s perception of the crispness of potato chips has also been shown to be altered when the auditory feedback from the biting sound is modified (Zampini & Spence, 2003). The aim of the present study was therefore to explore the possible association between specific tastes (bitter and sour) and specific auditory stimuli. A version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al., 1998) was used, in which we evaluated the strength of the association between sour or bitter food or drinks and high-pitched or low-pitched sounds (see Table 1). The association between sour taste and high-pitched notes (and bitter taste with low-pitched notes) was stronger than the reverse one, as revealed by the faster reaction times (RTs) observed when the same key was used for both categories. This association wasn’t influenced by taster status, as measured by a PTC tasting test. Our results suggest that gustatory perception is not only influenced by food attributes, such as smell, colour, and texture, but also by other types of sensory information.
References
Beeli G, Esslen M, Jäncke L. 2005. Synaesthesia: when coloured sounds taste sweet. Nature. 434:38.
Delwiche J. 2004. The impact of perceptual interactions on perceived flavour. Food Qual Prefer. 15:137-146.
Greenwald AG, McGhee DE, Schwartz JLK. 1998. Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: the implicit association test. J Pers Soc Psychol. 74:1464-1480.
Spence C, Shankar MU, Blumenthal H. In press. ‘Sound bites’: Auditory contributions to the perception and consumption of food and drink. To appear in F. Bacci & D. Mecher (Eds.), Art and the senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zampini M, Spence C. 2003. The role of auditory cues in modulating the perceived crispness and staleness of potato chips. J Sens Stud. 19: 347-363.