The effect of background music on food pleasantness ratings

Abstract

This study investigated whether samples of pleasant, neutral and unpleasant music can impact food perception. To this end, the pleasantness of three different types of chocolate gelati (milk chocolate, dark chocolate and bittersweet chocolate) was determined using 50 participants exposed to silence (the reference condition) and three music samples differing in self-rated preference. To measure hedonic responses to the gelati samples, the Time Intensity method was utilized to derive the maximum intensity of pleasantness and the area under the Time Intensity pleasantness curve. The presence of non-preferred music significantly decreased the pleasantness ratings of all three types of chocolate gelati tested, while preferred music increased perceived pleasantness ratings of dark and bittersweet chocolate gelati, but not milk chocolate gelato. Time Intensity parameters for pleasantness ratings did not differ significantly across the three different types of chocolate gelati in the silent condition, suggesting that listening to the music influenced gelati pleasantness ratings. This study demonstrated that the pleasantness of gelati changed with music valence. The findings echo previous studies emphasizing the importance of crossmodal effects between music and food perception.

Environmental Sounds Influence the Multisensory Perception of Chocolate Gelati

“…It has been established in our previous studies [17,18,19,20] that changes in the sensory properties of gelato do indeed vary over time when consumed while listening to music that differed in terms of its valence. This implies that the positive and negative valence of auditory stimuli may drive crossmodal associations.…”

“…Recently, researchers have investigated the dynamic effects of sounds on the perception of food using time intensity (TI), Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) and Temporal Check-All-That-Apply (TCATA) methods. Music varying in liking has been shown to influence the flavour perception of ice cream using TI [17], TDS [18,19] and TCATA [20]. Kantono et al [18,19] also found that emotions evoked by listening to music varying in valence were found to influence flavour perception.…”

“…Most of the research in this area has, however, focused only on the core affect of valence and arousal, often neglecting the dominance dimension. Kantono et al [17] attempted to map the affective responses of different eating environment sounds, and investigate their influence on the pleasantness of gelato over time using a time-intensity approach. They reported that a café soundscape, which evoked the highest pleasantness ratings, had the lowest arousal and dominance as compared to fast food restaurant and bar sounds.…”

The Effects of Ethnically Congruent Music on Eye Movements and Food Choice—A Cross-Cultural Comparison between Danish and Chinese Consumers

“…Auditory contributions to these sensory nudges are becoming an increasingly popular topic of research [ 4 , 5 ]. In particular, literature on ambient, atmospheric, or in-store music has been robustly shown to influence a myriad of consumer behavior and perception [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. These include manipulations of both simple (e.g., volume and tempo) and more complex (e.g., affective and genre) acoustic parameters [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], both of which can generate spontaneous feelings and physiological reactions, (“embodied meaning”), as well as cognitively prime contextual associations through semantic networks in memory (“referential meaning”) [ 15 ].…”

Introduction to the Special Issue on Auditory Contributions to Food Perception and Consumer Behaviour

“…One branch of the literature on sonic influences on tasting has also examined the phenomenon of 'sensation transference' -addressing questions such as 'If you like the music more, do you like what you are eating/drinking more too?' (e.g., see Kantono, Hamid, Sheperd, Yoo, Carr, & Grazioli. 2015;Kantono, Hamid, Sheperd, Yoo, Grazioli, & Carr, 2016;cf.…”