We’ve all had that disappointing experience of biting into a stale apple or potato chip. There’s no crunch, no freshness, and ultimately, it’s not as enjoyable as we’d have liked. What makes this experience disappointing isn’t just to do with the textural properties or the taste of the potato chip or apple. The sound we hear, or rather don’t hear, when taking the first bite is also crucial in informing our flavor experience.
Flavor is formed in the brain
It might seem somewhat counterintuitive at first but flavor is not simply in the food or drink we’re consuming. Flavor iscreated in our brainsfrom the information our senses are providing on what we’re eating or drinking. What makes flavor interesting is that all of our senses can affect how we perceive food and drink.
In other words, what we see, smell and feel can affect our flavor perception and according to a recent review by Professor Charles Spence, Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford, one sense that’soften forgotten about is hearing.
被遗忘的风味感
If someone were to ask you to rate the relative importance of various sensory attributes such as taste, smell, or color for flavor, you would probably be inclined to put what we hear right at the bottom of the list. Inhis review, Charles Spence calls sound the “forgotten flavour sense” because regular consumers and researchers in the field alike, often disregard its importance for flavor.
我们采访了他和DPHIL学生Janice Wang，讨论了我们听到的信息与风味的感知之间的关联。观看下面的视频以了解更多信息。
从咬人时听到的声音的响度和音高苹果或者potato chip，对音乐的影响对感知到感知的flavor of wine或者煤渣太妃糖的甜味或苦味, what we hear affects how we perceive food and drink.
Why sound is important
Sounds of consumption, or the sounds that are created through our interaction with food, are important because they probably provide information on the textural properties of food. That’s why the perceived freshness and crispiness of an apple or potato chip can be affected by manipulating the crunch sound heard while biting into said apple or potato chip.
音乐可能会通过在听众中创造期望来影响风味感知。例如，在煤渣太妃糖实验的情况下，根据A选择了回归主题的配乐先前的实验，这表明甜美的口味往往与较高的声音有关，而苦味往往与较低的声音有关。
As Janice Wang points out in the interview, it’s not really understood why people make these associations. Depending on which soundtrack was played back to the subjects while eating the toffee, it might have created expectations of sweetness or bitterness. This, in turn, may have influenced the flavor perception and either increased the perceived sweetness or bitterness of the toffee.
It’s multisensory
这些只是关于我们听到的信息会影响我们的风味体验的一些可能解释。研究multisensory integration, which looks at how our nervous system integrates input from various senses or sources, provides some clues on how these kind of associations might come about on a more fundamental level.
Next time you take a bite, remember to listen to the sounds around you. They probably play a bigger role in your enjoyment of whatever you’re biting into than you realize. And of course, so do all your other senses. As Charles Spence points out in the interview, flavor is perhaps the most multisensory of our everyday experiences.
注释