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The focus in the gastronomy and food science literature tends to be squarely on the design of the food/dish itself, rarely stopping to consider how that food makes its way to the mouth of the consumer/diner. The question to be addressed in this narrative historical review concerns how the experience of eating (at least amongst Western diners) changes when they eat with their hands as compared to conventional cutlery. Intriguingly, a number of chefs have recently started to question how their diners interact with the food they serve. At the same time, the latest gastrophysics research has begun to provide empirical evidence concerning the costs and benefits of several different kinds of interaction (e.g., eating with the hands versus with conventional cutlery) on the experience of various foods. In recent years, there has also been something of a relaxation of etiquette guidelines around which foods can be eaten with the hands, coinciding with the general shift toward more informal/casual dining. At the same time, however, the Instagrammability of food served on a diner's hand should not be neglected either as a powerful driver of change in the world of gastronomy and food consumption. Taken together, there would appear to be a move toward new ways of interacting with food, be it in the context of fine dining, or fast food, hence making the interaction with what we eat a topic worthy of further study by designers, chefs, gastrophysicists, food artists, and marketers.

Sounds elicit emotional responses that can influence the perception of food. However, the effects of sounds upon the perception of emotional and non-emotional foods have yet to be fully elucidated. The present study was designed to investigate how pleasant and unpleasant sounds influenced both perception and emotion responses during the consumption of chocolate milkshake (CM) and vegetable ice cream, representing emotional non-emotional foods, respectively. The temporal changes in perceived flavour were documented using the temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) method. In addition, ratings of liking, affective states, and emotional state were determined following the consumption of milkshake and ice cream. Canonical variate analysis (CVA) was used to further summarise the standardised duration of flavour of CM, liked vegetable ice cream (LV), and less liked vegetable ice cream (LLV) consumed under different sound conditions. Multivariate analysis revealed significant differences between the standardised duration of flavours of CM, LV, and LLV perceived under the pleasant sound (PS) and unpleasant sound (US) conditions. Additionally, flavour perception, affective states, and emotional responses varied with CM, LV, and LLV under the PS and US conditions. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how sounds that vary in pleasantness can influence the perceptual dynamics of emotional and non-emotional foods.

Voice quality or type of phonation (e.g., a whispery voice) can prime specific sensory associations amongst consumers. In the realm of sensory and consumer science, a wide range of taste-sound correspondences has been documented. A growing body of research on crossmodal correspondences has revealed that people reliably associate sounds with basic taste qualities. Here, we examined the largely unexplored associations between basic tastes and sounds: namely taste-voice quality correspondences. Across three pre-registered studies, participants associated four types of voice qualities (modal, whispery, creaky, and falsetto) with the five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami). Study 1 investigated the relations between voice qualities and taste words. Study 2 attempted to replicate the findings and revealed the underpinning psychological mechanisms in terms of semantic/emotional associations. Study 3 used the descriptions of food products that varied in terms of their taste to expand the applicability of the findings. The results demonstrated that participants reliably associate specific voice qualities with particular tastes. Falsetto voices are matched more strongly with sweetness than other voices. Creaky voices are matched more strongly with bitterness than other voices. Modal voices are matched more strongly with umami than creaky voices. Evaluation/positive valence might partially underlie the associations between sweet/bitter-voice quality correspondences. Taken together, these findings reveal a novel case of sound-taste correspondences and deepen our understanding of how people can associate attributes from different senses.

We report a study conducted at Underhill School in North London designed to assess the immediate impact of a culinary class with a chef on the students' willingness to choose and to eat unfamiliar vegetable-based food and beverage options. A total of 98 school children were randomly assigned to take part in either a 40-min sensory exploration and cooking class with chef Jozef Youssef and the Kitchen Theory team (the experimental condition) or else to take part in a creative origami class (the control condition) instead. The results demonstrate that Year 2 children (aged 6–7 years) were significantly more willing to choose unfamiliar vegetable-based food and drink offerings after having taken part in the sensory exploration and cooking class than after taking part in the control origami class. These results therefore highlight the potential relevance of sensory exploration and a brief chef-based cooking lesson on young children's willingness to choose and eat plant-based food.

Traditionally, in the West, the decision about which flavours to pair in a tasting experience has been as much the personal choice of the chef or, more likely, the sommelier, as anything else. However, the last couple of decades have seen a rapid growth of research interest in the pairing of flavours. Nowadays, one can find examples of people pairing everything from beer with food, tea with cheese and chocolate, etc. As interest in the marketing potential of flavour pairing has risen, along with the growing public fascination in the topic, scientists have become increasingly interested in trying to understand the principles (both cognitive/intellectual and perceptual) underlying the successful pairing of flavours. In this narrative review, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the chemical, computational (gastronomy), and perceptual approaches to pairing flavours are highlighted. Thereafter, I show how the various principles of pairing (both perceptual and cognitive/intellectual) can be extended beyond the domain of pairing flavour with flavour to consider the rapidly growing are of sonic seasoning. The latter term refers to those situations in which specific pieces of music or soundscapes are matched, or paired, with particular tastes/flavours based on the crossmodal correspondences. The review ends by considering the future development of pairings flavours, and assessing novel means of establishing connections between flavours and other sensations.

It would seem fair to say that most people in the West remain more than a little apprehensive about eating insects (entomophagy), and the idea of incorporating insect matter into their diet. Rather that telling people that they should eat insects and/or that it is good for the planet, the approach trialled as part of the Mexico dining concept delivered in London in 2015 by Kitchen Theory was to incorporate insect matter (primarily powdered, but also, on occasion, whole) into a number of the courses served as part of the seven-course meal. Importantly, various psychological techniques were built into the design of the multisensory experience in order to help familiarize those diners who were anxious about the prospect of eating bugs and critters. The consumption of insects has long been a (small) part of Mexican cuisine, and thus developing a creative Mexican dining concept seemed to be an appropriate gastronomic vehicle to introduce people to the pleasures and cultural history of entomophagy.

In recent years, a number of modernist chefs have started to pay more attention to the potential role of food or drink-extrinsic scents in enhancing their guest’s multisensory gastronomic experiences. This narrative review highlights the wide range of uses for such ambient, and/or food-extrinsic, aromas. Oftentimes, in a gastronomic setting, ambient scents have been introduced by chefs in order to help set the context for a particular dish, and/or to assist with the storytelling that surrounds a specific element within an experiential meal. Ambient scents have also been introduced in order to induce a specific mood and/or to trigger nostalgia in the minds of diners. Food-extrinsic scents have, on occasion, even been used deliberately to modify the taste/flavour of the food or drink itself. At the same time, however, a number of sensory marketers have become increasingly interested in the idea of signature scents associated with branded food establishments and the role that they may play in inducing a desire to consume, and thus bias (or nudge) people’s food purchasing behaviour. A third use of food scents is to help people control their food consumption. This narrative review highlights both the opportunities and challenges that are associated with the use of ambient and/or dish-extrinsic scent in a gastronomic setting. Ultimately, the literature reviewed here highlights the somewhat different uses to which ambient (or product-extrinsic) food smells have been put in the gastronomic, artistic/theatrical, health-related, and mainstream restaurant contexts.

People’s expectations concerning the functional properties and efficacy of pharmaceuticals are influenced by a wide variety of product-extrinsic factors, such as the colour (of both product and pack), form (e.g., tablet vs. capsule), and shape (e.g., round, oval, or diamond-shaped) of medicines, and the multisensory design of the product packaging. The sound symbolic properties of a medicine’s brand name, as well as its processing fluency, have also been shown to exert a significant influence over people’s expectations. However, given that non-adherence has long been a key issues with medical treatment, further research is urgently needed in order to determine the extent (albeit likely limited) to which these various product-extrinsic factors influence non-compliance, while at the same time avoiding the confusion that has been caused by the proliferation of look-alike/sound-alike drugs in the marketplace in recent years. Further research is also needed in order to help establish the cross-cultural consensuality of the meanings that are attached by consumers to these various different product-extrinsic sensory cues (especially colour) in the pharmaceutical category, and to firmly establish the robustness of any colour-based placebo effects. At the same time, however, it is currently unclear which cue (or cues) dominate(s) when multiple product attributes are manipulated simultaneously given that the influence of colour, shape, sound symbolism, etc., have typically only been studied individually to date. The multisensory design of pharmaceuticals and their packaging therefore constitutes a particularly intriguing, not to mention important, applied area for food/sensory scientists, marketing researchers, and cognitive neuroscientists.

When questioned, people typically report that different foods are appropriate at different times of day. What is more, patterns of food consumption tend to exhibit marked diurnal/circadian variations in many parts of the world too. The question addressed in this review is what factors help to explain these temporal differences in food consumption. While it has been suggested that our nutritional needs may differ somewhat over the course of the day, cultural conventions, marketing-led interventions, atmospheric (e.g., think only of changes in ambient temperature and/or daily light levels), perceptual (i.e., threshold) and/or hedonic changes, as well as psychological factors have also been suggested to play a role. Taken together, though, the evidence reviewed here would appear to support the view that cultural and psychological factors, not to mention the ubiquitous influence of food marketing, may be the most important factors in terms of helping to explain why it is that so many of us choose to eat different foods at different times of the day. Relevant psychological factors here include everything from the purported depletion of self-restraint resources over the course of the day through to the fulfilment of different psychological needs (e.g., functional or hedonic) associated with different mealtimes. Given the unhealthy foods typically associated with breakfast in many western countries (e.g., think only of sugar-laden breakfast cereals), gaining a better understanding of the factors underpinning current temporal patterns of food consumption may potentially help those wanting to nudge consumers toward making healthier food choices in the future.

Store atmospheres are inherently multisensory and constitute an important driver of consumer behaviour. The research suggests that background music (as one element of the multisensory atmosphere) can influence consumer preference and choice. However, the findings have been inconsistent as far as how background music influences people’s preferences for healthy vs. indulgent foods is concerned. By considering different music genres, food types, and tastes/flavours, we aimed to disentangle the mixed results that have been reported previously. Across two experiments (including one pre-registered replication), the participants rated their preferences for each of several options (healthy savoury, indulgent savoury, healthy sweet, indulgent sweet) while listening to one of four music genres (Jazz, Classical, Rock/Metal, and Hip-hop). The results of the two experiments consistently demonstrated that the effects of background music on food preferences were dependent on the interaction between music genre, food type (healthy vs. indulgent), and taste/flavour (sweet vs. savoury). Crucially, listening to Jazz and Classical music increased people’s preferences for healthy savoury foods (e.g., vegetable sandwich) as compared with Rock/Metal music. Listening to Rock/Metal, Hip-hop, and Jazz music increased people’s preferences for indulgent savoury foods (e.g., a beef sandwich) as compared with Classical music. Additionally, listening to Classical music increased people’s preferences for both healthier (e.g., low-fat milk) and indulgent (e.g., milk chocolate) sweet foods as compared with the other musical genres. The mediating role of emotions was also documented in these experiments. Specifically, positive valence mediated the relationship between music genre and sweet as well as healthier savoury foods, while the feeling of arousal mediated the relationship between music genre and indulgent savoury foods. These findings suggest that auditory atmospherics may influence consumers’ food preferences. Practical implications for store managers concerning when to select and use specific types of background music are made.

Engineering healthy diets from sustainable food resources undoubtedly constitutes a major global challenge. One solution to the problem of developing healthy and sustainable diets involves the incorporation of various novel/unfamiliar foods into our diets (e.g., insect-based foods, cultured meats, plant-based meat alternatives, and 3D printed foods). However, the consumer acceptance of novel/unfamiliar foods still poses something of a challenge. Although a growing body of research has started to reveal that situational factors (e.g., social companions, eating venue) can influence food preferences, it remains unclear how exactly they influence the consumer’s acceptance of novel/unfamiliar foods (including unfamiliar ingredients, food produced by novel processes/technologies). Across three studies, we examined the influence of social companions (alone, friend, family, acquaintance, partner) and venue (home, cafe, bar, pub, food festival, restaurant), on the anticipated willingness to try a number of novel/unfamiliar foods (insect-based foods, cultured meats, plant-based meat alternatives, and 3D printed foods). Using the category name and descriptions of novel/unfamiliar foods, our results demonstrated that situational factors influence anticipated acceptance differently depending on the type of novel/unfamiliar foods. Eating with friends and at food festivals plays an important role in the anticipated acceptance of insect-based foods, cultured meats, and 3D printed foods in a similar way. Moreover, expected positive and negative emotions might help to explain why these situational factors increase the anticipated acceptance of these foods. In contrast, the environmental situations that increase the anticipated acceptance of plant-based meat alternatives are similar to those increasing the acceptance of typical (rather than novel) foods. Taken together, these findings reveal the role of situational factors in the anticipated eating of a variety of novel/unfamiliar foods, thus providing practical implications on how/where to introduce such foods or engineer appropriate situations to increase the acceptance of, and exposure to, such novel/unfamiliar foods.

Given the worldwide growth of the over-the-counter (OTC) drug market and the increase in the direct-to-consumer advertising of medicines, pharmaceutical branding has become an increasingly important component affecting the consumer’s beliefs about, and hence their responses towards, OTC medicines. The brand name is one of the most important external cues for brand evaluation and influences various aspects of consumer-brand association (e.g., perceived quality/efficacy, brand attitude, and brand image). Although sound symbolism, which refers to the non-arbitrary association that exists between particular sound sequences and specific meanings in speech, has proven to be an effective means of creating successful brand names in a wide range of products, surprisingly little attention has been paid to its application in the case of pharmaceutical branding. In this study, we systematically investigated whether and how consonants in drug brand names influence consumers’ medicine expectancies (e.g., medicinal power, long-lasting efficacy). Across three experiments, a robust effect of voiced (vs. voiceless) consonants present in brand names on the perceived potency and activity for target medicines was found. In addition, the results also revealed that voiced (vs. voiceless) consonants increase the expectancies of medicine effectiveness, duration of medicine activity, price, and potential side effects. Furthermore, we found that the perceived potency and activity for brand names significantly mediated the effect of voiced consonants. Taken together, these findings enhance our understanding of the role of consonant sound symbolism in brand name development and can potentially help pharmaceutical firms to create appropriate brand names that can effectively communicate information concerning a medicine’s properties.

The recent explosion of interest in the topic of flavour pairing has been driven, at least in part, by the now-discredited food-pairing hypothesis, along with the emergence of the new field of computational gastronomy. Many chefs, sommeliers, mixologists, and drinks brands, not to mention a few food brands, have become increasingly interested in moving the discussions that they have with their consumers beyond the traditional focus solely on food and wine pairings. Here, two key approaches to pairing that might help to explain/justify those food and beverage combinations that the consumer is likely to appreciate are outlined. Historically-speaking, many conventional pairings emerged naturally from cultural/geographical matches, presumably internalized as semantic knowledge amongst consumers. In this review, such conventional pairings are framed as but one example of a cognitive/intellectual food-beverage strategy. The alternative approach to pairing that has become increasingly popular in recent years involves experts/commentators making recommendations based on the perceptual relationship, or interaction, between the component stimuli, be it one of perceived similarity, contrast, harmony, emergence, or modulation (either suppression or enhancement). Physicochemical accounts of pairing, based on the presence of shared flavour molecules (e.g., aromatic volatiles) in the to-be-combined flavours or ingredients, have also gained in popularity. Here, though, the latter approach is framed as an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to predict matches based on perceived similarity. This review summarizes the available evidence concerning food-beverage pairing and proposes a new dichotomy between intellectual/cognitive and perceptual pairing principles in the case of food-beverage matching.

One common definition of premiumness is as a higher quality and more expensive variant of a product than other members of the category or reference class. Premiumness can effectively be conveyed by means of different sensory cues (e.g., colours, sounds, weight). However, to date, research linking the sound of a product’s packaging with premiumness is sparse. In the present study, we demonstrate for the first time that consumers associate different levels of beer premiumness with the sounds of opening and pouring of bottles and cans. We report the results of two online experiments. Experiment 1 explored the effect of two sound properties associated with beer can and bottle opening and pouring (sound pressure and frequency) on the perception of premiumness. Experiment 2 used semantic differential scales (e.g., bad-good, passive-active) to evaluate the meanings people tend to associate with different auditory cues. The analyses revealed that participants perceived: 1) bottle sounds to be more premium overall than can sounds, 2) pouring sounds as more premium than opening sounds, and 3) higher pressure sounds as more premium than lower pressure sounds. Additionally, premiumness was positively correlated with semantic differentials of dead-alive, and the evaluative terms of sad-happy, awful-nice, and bad-good, which highlights the perceived quality and premium character of a beer when conveyed auditorily.

Research on the crossmodal correspondences has grown dramatically over the last decade. In this review, we focus specifically on audiovisual correspondences between simple auditory and visual stimuli in neurologically normal adults. We review the evidence highlighting the many effects that such crossmodal correspondences have now been documented to have both on people's perception and on their behavior. The latest research on the neural underpinnings of the correspondences is also reviewed in the context of early perceptual versus later cognitive processes. In addition, we address the thorny issue of the relationship between crossmodal correspondences, sound symbolism, and synesthesia.

While flavor perception may well be one of the most multisensory of our everyday experiences, researchers interested in multisensory perception have, until very recently at least, tended to stay away from the chemical senses. That said, a growing body of cognitive neuroscience research is now helping scientists to gain a better handle on the extent to which the rules of crossmodal interaction and multisensory integration documented for the spatial senses of vision, hearing, and touch are similar to/different from those used to integrate gustatory, olfactory, and trigeminal cues in the case of multisensory flavor perception. What we see, hear, and feel (both inside the oral cavity and elsewhere) influences what we taste, not to mention how much we enjoy the ensuing flavor experience. What we taste can be thought of as the sensory-discriminative and how much we enjoy as the hedonic response to food, respectively. That said, researchers disagree as to whether the sight, feel, and sound of food should be considered as constitutive of flavor perception or else merely as modulatory factors. In recent years, neuroimaging studies have started to identify some of the core neural circuits involved in the processing of food stimuli and controlling our responses to them (i.e., our feeding behavior). Nevertheless, the key point to note is that researchers have started to gain a much better understanding of multisensory integration as far as the flavor senses are concerned, and such insights are now starting to influence new food product development.

Research on those variables that have been shown to influence the consumer’s choice of beer is reviewed. The focus is on the choice of whether to drink beer as opposed to a beverage from another category, and to a greater extent, the choice between different types or styles of beer. Inspired by previous research on a diverse array of factors that have been shown to influence food and beverage choice, the review examines how beer choice is driven by consumer variables (covering biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors), product-intrinsic attributes (the sensory aspects of the beer itself), product-extrinsic attributes (external sensory characteristics, such as packaging), and contextual and environmental influences. These situational factors refer to variables such as the location where choice/consumption takes place (i.e., on- versus off-trade), as well as the context, occasion, and reason for drinking. Current trends related to choice and consumption, such as the emerging interest in beer-food pairing, are also examined. The review groups these attributes which affect people’s beer wanting, choice, and purchase in order to understand the beer consumer’s choice process. Along with general conclusions, a number of key directions for future research are also presented, given that the relative contribution of each type of factor on consumer’s choice behaviour is still unclear.

It has been demonstrated previously that the surface textures of product packaging and servingware can impact the perceived taste and mouthfeel of various different foods and beverages. The present study was designed to investigate whether coffee cups with different surface textures would influence the judgment of taste and mouthfeel attributes in specialty coffee by experts (Q-graders) and amateur consumers alike. A total of 231 participants were tested in one of the three studies. A preliminary test conducted at a specialty coffee event in Russia indicated that rubbing a swatch of sandpaper whilst drinking coffee influenced perceived body and aftertaste qualities. In the two main studies (Experiment 1 for Q-graders, and Experiment 2 for amateurs), the participants evaluated a sample of specialty coffee (a different coffee in each study) served in either a smooth or a rough ceramic cup. The coffee was rated by the Q-graders as tasting significantly more acidic when sampled from the rough cup, as opposed to the smooth, whereas the amateurs perceived the coffee as being significantly sweeter when tasted from the smooth cup rather than from the rough cup instead. Both Q-graders and amateurs judged the aftertaste as significantly dryer when tasted from the rough rather than from the smooth cup. The perception of body was not significantly affected in any of the experiments. These results demonstrate that haptic cues influence the judgment of basic tastes as well as mouthfeel attributes in specialty coffee, for both experts and amateur consumers. Such results should be considered by the industry when designing innovative coatings for coffee cups. In addition to innovation, though, it is important to create cups that convey some functional and/or perceptual benefit for the coffee drinking experience.

Coffee is one of the world’s most popular beverages, with an estimated four hundred billion cups being consumed each and every year. In this review, we investigate just what effect the multisensory atmosphere/context has on people’s perception of, not to mention their choices concerning, coffee. We demonstrate how many different aspects of the environment influence people’s choice of what beverage to drink as well as what they think about the experience. Specifically, the visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile aspects of the environment have all been shown to impact the experience of tasting and drinking coffee. This extensive body of empirical research complements the emerging findings demonstrating the influence of the receptacle in which coffee is consumed. Looking to the future, and acknowledging the profound influence of multisensory atmospherics on the experience of beverages, it would seem likely that there will be growing interest in optimizing and/or personalizing the environment for the kind of multisensory tasting experience that the coffee consumer wishes to have.

Wine colour carries a myriad of meanings regarding the provenance and expected sensory qualities of a wine. That meaning is presumably learnt through association, and part of a wine taster's skill comes from being able to decode information that can be discerned in subtle variations in the colour of the wine that they drink/evaluate. However, reliance on colour means that wine tasters, especially experts, often exhibit colour-induced olfactory biases. The present study assesses how wine colour – specifically the pink hue of rose wines – can influence both the perceived aroma and flavour in a large sample of wine novices and experts. Participants (N = 168) tasted three wines – a white wine (W), a rose wine (R), and the white wine dyed to match the rose (Ŕ) – and freely selected three aroma and three flavour descriptors from a list. They also rated wine liking, flavour intensity, and description difficulty for each wine. Linguistic analysis demonstrated that those with wine tasting experience judged Ŕ to be much more similar to R than to W, even though Ŕ and W were the same. Moreover, red fruit descriptors were attributed to both R and Ŕ, especially in terms of flavour. Quantitative ratings revealed that Ŕ was liked less than W or R, and participants found it more difficult to describe Ŕ than R. These results demonstrate that while participants found the dyed rose somehow different from the undyed wines, they nevertheless used the red fruit terms to describe its aroma and flavour. The implications of such results in terms of cognitive representations of wine and the role of sensory expectations are discussed.

We investigate the factors that influence the visual search for bottles displaying a triangular label whose orientation differs from that of background distractors, using shampoo bottles as stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, the participants had to find a bottle having a triangular label in a different orientation from the others displayed as rapidly as possible. The results consistently demonstrated that searching for a trapezoidal-shaped bottle with a downward-pointing triangular label was faster than searching for the same bottle with an upward-pointing triangular label instead. In Experiment 3, participants rated the valence and bottle-label congruency for all of the packaging exemplars used in Experiments 1 and 2. The results revealed that the participants rated a downward-pointing triangular-shaped label as being more incongruent with trapezoidal-shaped bottles than an upward-pointing label. Our findings reveal that the downward-pointing triangle superiority (DPTS) effect elicited by the triangular-shaped label is also influenced by the silhouette of the bottle (which presumably provides a reference frame). Such interactions between label and silhouette have direct implications for packaging design.

The eating context influences eating behaviour as well as the hedonic response to food. This study investigated temporal changes in the perceived flavour of chocolate ice cream when consumed in a laboratory, cafe, university study area, and a city bus stop, and further examined how emotion and electrophysiological measures were influenced by these environments. In this study, three measures were obtained from 160 participants. First, temporal changes in multisensory flavour perception after consuming chocolate ice cream in different environments were determined using the Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) method. Second, participants’ emotional responses were measured after consuming ice cream using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) list of emotions. Finally, standard electrophysiological measures of heart rate (HR), blood volume pulse (BVP), and skin conductance (SC) were also obtained. When ice cream was consumed in the cafe, it was associated with positive emotions and a sweet taste/flavour. When consumed in the university study area, it was correlated with both positive and negative emotions, and cocoa and milky flavours. Consumption at the city bus stop was correlated with the most negative emotions, and with roasted and bitter tastes/flavours. The laboratory environment was only correlated with the attributes of ‘concentrating’ and creamy flavour. SC was significantly increased in the university study area as compared to the laboratory, and HR was significantly decreased in the university study area environment as compared to the bus stop. The evidence from this study therefore indicates that the eating context constitutes an important factor to consider when carrying out sensory testing as participants’ emotions, perceptions, and electrophysiological responses are influenced differently dependent upon the eating context.

This review summarizes the latest evidence concerning the impact of the colour, shape, texture, weight, and other material properties of the drinking receptacle on the perception of coffee. The colour of the cup, for instance, has been shown to prime notions of sweetness (e.g., pink cup) or acidity (e.g., yellow or green cup) that may carry over to influence the tasting experience. Meanwhile, the shape and surface feel of the drinking vessel have also been shown to exert a profound influence over the perceived aroma/taste of coffee. Given that the various sensory attributes of the drinking vessel can exert such a striking influence over the drinking experience, the challenge, moving forward, is to optimize the design of the receptacle in order to enhance the multisensory tasting experience for the consumer. Given that different styles/varieties of specialty coffee have different dominant/desirable qualities (e.g., acidity/sweetness), in the future, the design of coffee cups may need to be customized for different coffee drinking experiences (e.g., origin or roast), much as seen in the world of fine wine (with different glasses for different grape varieties).

The first mechanical device for making cotton candy, sometimes referred to as candy floss in the UK and New Zealand, and fairy floss in Australia, was patented in North America in the closing years of the 19th century. Ever since, this popular technique for transforming a simple base ingredient into a much more voluminous spun sugar confection (often with the addition of food colouring and flavouring) has been a popular staple treat for children in many parts of the world at fairgrounds, funfairs, and the seaside. Intriguingly, however, this (in a sense) early molecular gastronomy, or modernist cooking technique (involving, as it does, the radical transformation of an ingredient) has, until recently, remained firmly in the category of ‘entertainment’ food. As such, the particular texture/appearance of this confection tends to be uniquely connected in many people's minds to childhood pleasure hence perhaps also triggering nostalgic thoughts. In recent decades, a number of famous chefs, such as Ferran Adria and Jose Andres, have started to incorporate cotton candy into some of their sweet (and, on occasion, savoury) culinary creations. Here, we describe a novel amuse bouche, called ‘A study in white’, in which four differently-shaped/textured colourless white edible bites were served to diners in a restaurant setting. In this case, the latter were encouraged to try and determine which of the four so-called basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, or salty) they would associate with each texture/shape in the absence of any other sensory cue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the chef chose cotton candy as the most unambiguous textural cue to connote sweetness, a cue that many of the diners immediately picked-up on. A follow-up online cross-cultural study revealed that both Spanish- and English-speaking participants (N = 339) associated candy floss more strongly with sweetness than even something that looked like a sugar cube.

Much previous work has demonstrated that the shape of different design elements, when viewed in relation to food, can influence consumers’ evaluations, perceptions, and intentions regarding the food viewed. However, relatively few studies have focused specifically on packaging design and, to date, just one has considered the shape of transparent packaging, a prevalent feature of modern packaging designs. We report the results of two within-participants online studies aimed at rapidly exploring the consequences of any crossmodal correspondences elicited by shape in the novel context of transparent windows on packaging design. Across both experiments, 209 participants viewed a subset of 7 window shapes, across 4 ‘faux’ brands in different product categories. Each packaging design was rated for expected overall liking of the product; willingness to purchase, tastiness, sourness, and sweetness, design innovativeness, and design attractiveness. Certain previous findings were replicated, in that a preference for circular (vs. rectangular) windows, and for upwards- (vs. downwards-)pointing triangles, was found. However, crossmodal correspondences between circular shapes and sweetness, and angular shapes and sourness, were not robustly observed. Explanations for this unpredicted finding are suggested. Furthermore, implications and recommendations for commercial practitioners of packaging design are made.

Given global concerns over the depleting resources of our seas and oceans, and the increasing lack of sustainable seafood options, jellyfish are emerging as a potential future food. Jellyfish currently represent a sustainable food resource, one whose availability will likely increase with global warming. While jellyfish are a popular delicacy in many parts of Asia, it is currently an unfamiliar food to the majority of Western diners. In this paper, we show how multisensory experience design can be used to introduce diners to this highly-textured, if essentially flavourless, source of food. Created by chef Jozef Youssef, and served at Kitchen Theory's Gastrophysics Chefs Table, the jellyfish dish is placed on a table that is projection mapped with an underwater scene, accompanied by a bespoke, crossmodally-congruent soundscape delivered to diners wearing headphones. The response from diners to this unusual food has so far been uniformly positive.

We report evidence concerning how the visual appearance of a drink (dark vs. light pale/amber beer) can influence the consumer’s tasting experience. Two experiments were designed to study the effect of visual appearance on people’s hedonic and sensory judgments of beer. Importantly, the beers were indistinguishable in terms of their flavor when tasted in the absence of visual cues.Participants rated the same beer (pale or dark, depending in which group they were assigned) under blind conditions as having more body than when tasted under sighted condition (regardless of whether it was pale or dark; see Experiment 1).When the participants evaluated the expectations and tasting experience of the two different beers under sighted conditions (pale vs. dark), after tasting, those who preferred pale beers, rated the darker beer as tasting sweeter than those who usually prefer other types of beers, such as dark ones (see Experiment 2). Prior tasting, when asked which beer they thought was the most expensive, the majority of the participants chose the darker beer. Furthermore, after tasting both beers, participants reported being willing to pay up to 6% more on average for the darker beer as compared to the pale one. ispartof: FOOD QUALITY AND PREFERENCE vol:74 pages:21-29 status: published

People are increasingly purchasing (e.g., food, clothes) and consuming (e.g., movies, courses) online where, traditionally, the sensory interaction has mostly been limited to visual, and to a lesser extent, auditory inputs. However, other sensory interfaces (e.g., including touch screens, together with a range of virtual, and augmented solutions) are increasingly being made available to people to interact online. Moreover, recent progress in the field of human–computer interaction means that online environments will likely engage more of the senses and become more connected with offline environments in the coming years. This expansion will likely coincide with an increasing engagement with the consumer's more emotional senses, namely touch/haptics, and possibly even olfaction. Forward-thinking marketers and researchers will therefore need to appropriate the latest tools/technologies in order to deliver richer online experiences for tomorrow's consumers. This review is designed to help the interested reader better understand what sensory marketing in a digital context can offer, thus hopefully opening the way for further research and development in the area. forfatterversjon 1

People map different sensory stimuli, and words that describe/refer to those stimuli, onto spatial dimensions in a manner that is non-arbitrary. Here, we evaluate whether people also associate basic taste words and products with characteristic tastes with a distinctive location (e.g., upper right corner) or a more general direction (e.g., more right than left). Based on prior research on taste and location valence, we predicted that sweetness would be associated with higher vertical spatial positions than the other basic tastes. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 support the view that participants do indeed locate the word “sweet” higher in space than the word “bitter”. In Experiment 2, the participants also positioned products that are typically expected to be sweet (cupcake and honey) or bitter (beer and coffee) spatially. Overall, the sweet-tasting products were assigned to higher locations than were the bitter-tasting products. In order to test whether taste/location congruency would also affect product evaluations, a third experiment was conducted. The results of Experiment 3A (between participants) and 3B (within participants) failed to provide any evidence for the existence of consistent taste/location congruency effects. However, in Experiment 3B, the participants evaluated the sweet products as looking more appetizing when presented in upper relative to lower shelf locations. In none of the three studies was an association found between tastes and positions along the horizontal axis. Taken together, these results suggest that sweet and bitter tastes are differentially located in vertical, but not horizontal, space. The potential implications of these findings for both our understanding of the crossmodal correspondences, as well as for taste evaluation, and product placement are discussed. Experiments 1 and 2 were supported by a grant from the Research Foundation - Flanders (grant number 1119717N FWO Vlaanderen). Carlos Velasco would like to thank the Research Funding from the Department of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business School.

In recent years, food and drink marketers have become increasingly interested in the question of whether there are any meaningful sex/gender differences in the world of taste/flavour perception. However, it turns out that while there are a large number of individual differences in the experience of food/drink, few, if any, fall neatly along sex/gender lines. As such, the marketers of food and drink need to tread very carefully when it comes to marketing food or beverage products specifically at men, or more usually, women. All too often, the brands entering this space soon find their attempts branded crass and/or sexist. Adopting a stealthy or implicit gender-based product development strategy is therefore perhaps more likely to succeed than the explicit targeting of food/beverage-related products in what is undoubtedly a highly-politicized area. That said, the one area where the public appear willing to accept products that are explicitly targeted at men or women is in the case of nutritional foods/supplements.

Many people talk admiringly about the complexity of wine. However, it is often unclear what exactly they have in mind when using the term. In this review, we summarize why the appealing notion of chemical complexity is presumably not what is being referred to. Instead, we argue that a more plausible explanation is in terms of perceived complexity. It would appear that some writers use the term ‘complex’ upon tasting a wine that exhibits a number of distinct, yet harmoniously-balanced, elements that may be experienced over the course of a single prolonged mouthful, over a glass, or over the lifetime of the wine as it ages in the bottle. However, another use of the term that has emerged from studies conducted on both experts and social wine drinkers relates to a single unitary perceptual experience of complexity. Perhaps, though, the latter account is better described as inferred rather than directly perceived complexity. Ultimately, according to the evidence that has been published to date, it would appear that different groups of consumers use the term ‘complexity’ consistently while, at the same time, describing something different in, or about, the wine. We focus, in particular, on differences in the usage of the term between wine experts and social wine drinkers.

There is widespread agreement that what some of the most innovative chefs have been doing over the last quarter century or so in the west deserves a name that highlights how things have moved on in the kitchens and dining rooms from the nouvelle cuisine movement. However, what no one can seem to agree on is what name should be given to this movement. The scientists and press have been keen to label it as the science of ‘molecular gastronomy’. However, many of the top chefs, after in some cases initially embracing the idea, have distanced themselves from that moniker. In their pronouncements and interviews, the latter have been keen to stress that while they are interested in the findings of scientific research, what they do is better conceptualized as the art and craft of cooking. Many of the top chefs have been inspired by the results of the scientific research much as they are inspired by what is happening in many other fields of endeavour, from painting to jazz etc. Given that it is mostly not what the chefs do, it becomes increasingly unclear whether ‘molecular gastronomy’ is itself anything more than a ‘glorified’ sub-discipline of food science. We believe, along with several other commentators, that the most appropriate name for what distinguishes contemporary culinary practice is what can be labelled ‘experimental cooking’. It is defined as much by its innovativeness, its novelty, its creativity, and by the way in which it engages with the diner’s intellect and emotions (with the diner’s brain in other words), as with their gut.

Considerable evidence now shows that making a reference to the self in a task modulates attention, perception, memory, and decision-making. Furthermore, the self-reference effect (SRE) cannot be reduced to domain-general factors (e.g., reward value) and is supported by distinct neural circuitry. However, it remains unknown whether self-associations modulate response execution as well. This was tested in the present study. Participants carried out a perceptual-matching task, and movement time (MT) was measured separately from reaction-time (RT; drawing on methodology from the literature on intelligence). A response box recorded ‘home’-button-releases (measuring RT from stimulus onset); and a target-key positioned 14 cm from the response box recorded MT (from ‘home’-button-release to target-key depression). MTs of responses to self- as compared with other-person-associated stimuli were faster (with a higher proportion correct for self-related responses). We present a novel demonstration that the SRE can modulate the execution of rapid-aiming arm-movement responses. Implications of the findings are discussed, along with suggestions to guide and inspire future work in investigating how the SRE influences action.

During the latter half of the last century, a number of cultural commentators confidently asserted that blue food and drink products would never succeed in the marketplace. How, then, to explain the recent rise of blue drinks in our stores and images of blue foods online? Blue foods are certainly rare in nature, rarer, at least, than foods of other colours. Perhaps as a result, this hue tends to be associated with notions of unnatural and artificial food colouring. That said, ‘natural’ blue food and drink items are becoming an increasingly common sight in the grocery aisles and online due, in part, to this colour's ability to capture our attention in-amongst the other more common food colours. This article highlights those situations/contexts in which blue is/isn’t an acceptable food colour, and how attitudes have changed over the decades, in part, due to the emergence of a number of naturally-sourced colouring agents. Ultimately, I consider the question of what, if anything, is stopping us from purchasing/making/consuming more blue food and drink products, and whether or not the current popularity of this colour will last. This review also addresses the question of why it is that blue foods are so rarely seen in chef-prepared meals.

Fusion cuisine is all the rage these days, but how, exactly, should it be defined? One might all too easily think of it as an exclusively contemporary phenomenon, given fusion cuisine's current popularity in the food media. However, take a suitably long-term view, and it soon becomes clear that most of the foods that we eat today actually represent a fusion of ingredients, flavours, components, recipes, styles, and/or food philosophies. That said, there would appear to be a widespread contemporary interest in fusion foods, especially amongst food marketers and the consuming public at large. The latter's ‘hunger’ for the many putatively new fusion foods introduced into the food marketplace in recent years can perhaps be framed within a broader interest in all things novel, and experimental, in the world of cuisine these days. That said, it is important to note that coming up with genuinely new fusion food products, or dishes, is not as easy as it might at first seem, in part, for the reasons outlined herein. All too easily, new fusion cuisine can end-up leading to ‘con-fusion’, especially if the consumer doesn’t know how to ‘read’ the new culinary creation. Meanwhile other, apparently new, creations turn out, on closer inspection, to have older (often forgotten) roots. This review highlights the need to find the right name with which to correctly flag where exactly the innovation lies, as well as stressing the challenges associated with navigating the border between flavours that blend/merge and fusion foods.

The fondue, a Swiss classic, has recently made something of a comeback in homes across the UK. But what explains the resurgence of this 1970s retro chic dish in Britain? On the one hand, its resurgence is surprising, given that fondue doesn’t fit with either current trends toward healthy eating or the rise of more Instagrammable dishes. On the other hand, however, it does fit with the growing trend toward sharing plates. Intriguingly, it may also link to current concerns about global insecurity etc. since the fondue can be considered as something of a nostalgic dish for some (i.e., for baby-boomers and those who are comfortably into middle age) and a comfort food for many (i.e., perhaps regardless of their age). Finally, the origins of the fondue in a country that lies just outside the EU (but which manages to maintain good economic/political relations) may also be relevant given current debate about how Brexit will play out. In this commentary, I take a closer look at some of the cultural factors that may help to explain this recent food trend.

Objectives It is well-known that visual information is crucial to successful anticipation in tennis. Here, we examine whether the sound of a tennis ball being struck by a racquet would influence anticipatory judgments of the ball's trajectory. Design Within videos of tennis rallies from the semi-final of the Australian Open 2016 between Djokovic and Federer, the intensity of the sounds produced when the racquet hit the ball were manipulated systematically. Methods Experienced tennis players anticipated where the ball would land in the opponent's half. Results The results highlight that the louder the sound of the contact between the racquet and ball, the longer participants predicted the ball's trajectory to be. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that besides the crucial contribution of vision to anticipation, action-related auditory cues can significantly influence predictions of the outcome of strokes in tennis as well.

Integrating multisensory stimuli from a self-centred perspective is crucial for the unity of the self. On the other hand, understanding external space and communicating spatial knowledge with others necessitate the adoption of decentred perspectives. How do we juggle these two requirements? In this article, we review those studies that have used the graphesthesia task in order to investigate the perspectives that people adopt when interpreting ambiguous tactile symbols (e.g., b, d, p, and q). With such ambiguous symbols, self-centred and decentred perspectives conflict with one another. The results reviewed here reveal that the perspectives adopted vary significantly with spatial, personal, and interpersonal factors. Such findings suggest that the self can adopt a multiplicity of spatial locations. However, the unity of the self can partly be explained by the predominance of a head-centred perspective. On the other hand, perspective-taking abilities contribute to the distinction between self and others, reinforcing self-consciousness.

The interplay between top-down and bottom-up factors in attentional selection has been a topic of extensive research and controversy amongst scientists over the past two decades. According to the influential contingent capture hypothesis, a visual stimulus needs to match the feature(s) implemented into the current attentional control sets in order to be automatically selected. Recently, however, evidence has been presented that attentional control sets affect not only visual but also crossmodal selection. The aim of the present study was therefore to establish contingent capture as a general principle of multisensory selection. A non-spatial interference task with bimodal (visual and auditory) distractors and bimodal targets was used. The target and the distractors were presented in close temporal succession. In order to perform the task correctly, the participants only had to process a predefined target feature in either of the two modalities (e.g., colour when vision was the primary modality). Note that the additional crossmodal stimulation (e.g., a specific sound when hearing was the secondary modality) was not relevant for the selection of the correct response. Nevertheless, larger interference effects were observed when the distractor matched both the stimulus of the primary as well as the secondary modality and this pattern was even stronger if vision was the primary modality than if audition was the primary modality. These results are therefore in line with the crossmodal contingent capture hypothesis. Both visual and auditory early processing seem to be affected by top-down control sets even beyond the spatial dimension.

Given that our perceptual capacity is limited, it is important that we are able to focus our attention selectively on certain stimuli at the expense of others to behave effectively in a world filled with sensory information. Here, we review evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies of this process of selective attention in vision, hearing, and touch. Our particular focus in this chapter is on the enduring debate over the stage of processing at which unattended information is excluded from further processing. This chapter describes the origins of this debate and highlights some of the most important empirical and theoretical work that have emerged from studies of this issue in recent years.

Touch is the first of our senses to develop, providing us with the sensory scaffold on which we come to perceive our own bodies and our sense of self. Touch also provides us with direct access to the external world of physical objects, via haptic exploration. Furthermore, a recent area of interest in tactile research across studies of developing children and adults is its social function, mediating interpersonal bonding. Although there are a range of demonstrations of early competence with touch, particularly in the domain of haptics, the review presented here indicates that many of the tactile perceptual skills that we take for granted as adults (e.g., perceiving touches in the external world as well as on the body) take some time to develop in the first months of postnatal life, likely as a result of an extended process of connection with other sense modalities which provide new kinds of information from birth (e.g., vision and audition). Here, we argue that because touch is of such fundamental importance across a wide range of social and cognitive domains, it should be placed much more centrally in the study of early perceptual development than it currently is.

In this review, we evaluate the neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and psychophysical evidence relevant to the claim that multisensory information is processed differently depending on the region of space in which it happens to be presented. We discuss how the majority of studies of multisensory interactions in the depth plane that have been conducted to date have focused on visuotactile and audiotactile interactions in frontal peripersonal space and underline the importance of such multisensory interactions in defining peripersonal space. Based on our review of studies of multisensory interactions in depth, we question the extent to which peri- and extra-personal space (both frontal and rear) are characterized by differences in multisensory interactions (as evidenced by multisensory stimuli producing a different behavioral outcome as compared to unisensory stimulation). In addition to providing an overview of studies of multisensory interactions in different regions of space, our goal in writing this review has been to demonstrate that the various kinds of multisensory interactions that have been documented may follow very similar organizing principles. Multisensory interactions in depth that involve tactile stimuli are constrained by the fact that such stimuli typically need to contact the skin surface. Therefore, depth-related preferences of multisensory interactions involving touch can largely be explained in terms of their spatial alignment in depth and their alignment with the body. As yet, no such depth-related asymmetry has been observed in the case of audiovisual interactions. We therefore suggest that the spatial boundary of peripersonal space and the enhanced audiotactile and visuotactile interactions that occur in peripersonal space can be explained in terms of the particular spatial alignment of stimuli from different modalities with the body and that they likely reflect the result of prior multisensory experience.

A growing body of literature associates musculoskeletal disorders with cortical reorganisation. One condition in which reorganisation is established and treatments that 'train the brain' are being widely used is chronic back pain. Recent evidence suggests that treatments that involve tactile training are more effective if they incorporate multisensory mechanisms, most obviously vision. With regard to back pain however, we must first determine if tactile function is enhanced by incorporating other modalities. A series of three cross-over experiments were conducted in healthy pain-free subjects to determine whether tactile acuity is enhanced when participants can see the skin of their back during testing. An initial randomised cross-over experiment suggested tactile acuity was significantly enhanced when participants could see their backs (t(25) = similar to 4.226, p < 0.001, r = 0.65). However, a second replication experiment was not corroborative. Both the second (F(3,66) = 1.00, p = 0.398) and third (t(9) = 0.969, p = 0.358) experiments suggested that seeing the back did not significantly affect tactile acuity, confirming that our initial results were likely due to chance. The principle that visual feedback improves tactile acuity at the hand does not apply to the back. These results strongly suggest that attempts to enhance tactile training by incorporating vision will not offer the benefit to treatment of back pain that has been observed for treatment of hand pain. Refereed/Peer-reviewed