Sound-enhanced gustatory experiences and technology

We discuss whether sound can add value to people's tasting experiences. The results presented here may be a source of inspiration for experience designers in the food industry wanting to add value to food/beverage products and/or to enhance multisensory tasting events. The available new technologies allow people to use sound as an input for moments associated with our eating and drinking habits. Here, we review three studies that used chocolate as taste stimulus. In general, the results revealed that sound can, in some cases and in different ways, modulate the taste/flavor of food (i.e., sweetness, bitterness, creaminess). These results also suggest that popular songs and soundscapes can add significant hedonic value while tasting. We discuss our results in light of new technologies (e.g., virtual reality), which offer both companies and consumers potential means for bringing customized multisensory eating and drinking experiences. We also discuss how this knowledge could be further applied - and perhaps improved - in order to make these experiences more scalable and applicable for the general public.

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