Background: Shape can play an important role in our perception of food. In this study, the consequences of crossmodal correspondences between shape and taste on the expected and actual experience of eating chocolate were evaluated. Participants were given two identical dark chocolates differing only in terms of their shape (round or angular) and then rated their expectations of sweetness, bitterness, creaminess and liking. Subsequently, they rated their experience of those attributes on tasting the chocolates. Repeated-measures multivariate analyses (RM-MANOVA) of variance were conducted to assess the role of chocolate shape and cacao content on expected and post-taste chocolate ratings. In addition, we assessed the differences between expected and post-taste ratings for each chocolate shape. Results: The results revealed that the shape of the chocolate significantly influenced expected sweetness, bitterness and creaminess. By contrast, it had no significant effect on post-tasting ratings. The round chocolates were judged to be less sweet, more bitter, less creamy and liked less than expected, whereas the angular chocolates were judged to be slightly more creamy than expected. Conclusions: The theory of assimilation and contrast is outlined as one plausible mechanism behind the differences between expectation and the actual taste experience. Implications for food product design and directions for future research are discussed.

There has been a recent growth of interest in determining whether sound (specifically music and soundscapes) can enhance not only the basic taste attributes associated with food and beverage items (such as sweetness, bitterness, sourness, etc.), but also other important components of the tasting experience, such as, for instance, crunchiness, creaminess, and/or carbonation. In the present study, participants evaluated the perceived creaminess of chocolate. Two contrasting soundtracks were produced with such texture-correspondences in mind, and validated by means of a pre-test. The participants tasted the same chocolate twice (without knowing that the chocolates were identical), each time listening to one of the soundtracks. The 'creamy' soundtrack enhanced the perceived creaminess and sweetness of the chocolates, as compared to the ratings given while listening to the 'rough' soundtrack. Moreover, while the participants preferred the creamy soundtrack, this difference did not appear to affect their overall enjoyment of the chocolates. Interestingly, and in contrast with previous similar studies, these results demonstrate that in certain cases, sounds can have a perceptual effect on gustatory food attributes without necessarily altering the hedonic experience.

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.

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.