Abstract
A pair of recently published studies demonstrate that what we happen to be listening to can sometimes change our perception (or, at the very least, our rating) of what we are eating or drinking. In one recent study, North (2012) showed that the emotional attributes (or connotation) of a piece of music could influence people's perception of red or white wine. Meanwhile, Crisinel et al. (2012) reported that listening to a lower-pitched soundscape can help to emphasize the bitter notes in a bittersweet toffee while listening to a soundscape with a higher pitch tends to bring out its sweetness. Although the most appropriate psychological and neuroscientific explanations for such crossmodal effects are still uncertain, we outline a number of possible alternatives for such intriguing, not to mention surprising, phenomena.
Highlights
Humans, not to mention other species, make many, what at first may seem surprising, associations between experiences presented in different sensory modalities, such as matching darker objects with lower-pitched sounds and lighter objects with higher-pitched sounds (e.g., Ludwig, Adachi, & Matzuzawa, 2011; Marks, 1978; Spence, 2004)
The music samples had been chosen on the basis of a pilot study in which they had scored highly on one of several emotional dimensions: “powerful and heavy” (Carmina Burana by Orff), “subtle and refined” (Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker”), “zingy and refreshing” (Just can’t get Enough by Nouvelle Vague), and “mellow and soft” (Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook)
The results demonstrated that the wines were rated as significantly more powerful and heavy when Carl Orff was played in the background than when any of the other pieces of music were playing
Summary
Not to mention other species, make many, what at first may seem surprising, associations between experiences presented in different sensory modalities, such as matching darker objects with lower-pitched sounds and lighter objects with higher-pitched sounds (e.g., Ludwig, Adachi, & Matzuzawa, 2011; Marks, 1978; Spence, 2004). North (2012) recently published an intriguing study demonstrating just such a surprising crossmodal influence in which the type of music playing in the background was shown to influence students’ rating of the qualities of a sample of wine that they were evaluating.
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