{"id":88696,"date":"2022-12-13T12:16:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-13T17:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=88696"},"modified":"2022-12-13T12:16:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T17:16:43","slug":"report-sonic-seasoning-sound-affects-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2022\/12\/13\/report-sonic-seasoning-sound-affects-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT | Sonic Seasoning: How Sound Affects Taste"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image
Image by \u0420\u0443\u0441\u043b\u0430\u043d \u0421\u0438\u043a\u0443\u043d\u043e\u0432 (CC0\/Pixabay)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sonic seasoning, or oenesthesia, is a growing field of research into the way sounds can affect the way we experience food and drink.<\/p>\n

Naturally, much of the research has been driven by companies in the food and drink industry.<\/p>\n

Wine and spirits<\/h3>\n

In a 2017 study<\/a> at the University of Oxford, UK, researchers found that test subject rated the wines they tasted up to 15% higher, and their \u201ccelebratory\u201d rating went up 20%, when they heard the sound of a cork popping \u2014 even though they were tasting the same drink. Professor Charles Spence, who heads the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford, has dubbed his specialty \u201cwine psychology\u201d.<\/p>\n

The concept has taken hold quickly in the wine industry, from using specific music and DJs at tasting events, to the idea of blending sounds with wine-making itself.<\/p>\n

Chris Carpenter, a winemaker for several wineries in Napa Valley, as well as Hickinbotham winery in Australia, is quoted in Wine Enthusiast<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy many different genres, but classical music is the only music I blend to,\u201d he says. \u201cIts pattern of sound and mood, its complexity and its timelessness work on my brain in a way that seems to spark the same output in bringing the various flavours in my wines together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other winemakers are turning the idea around. At Medlock Ames winery in California, customers are offered the Immersive Sound Experience<\/a> \u2014 a chance to hear the sounds of wine-making as they tour the premises, prior to tasting.<\/p>\n

Recently, tequila maker Avi\u00f3n created the Avi\u00f3n Listening Experience for the release of a new line of tequila. They used the real sounds of Mexican tequila making to create a kind of sensory tour of the process.<\/p>\n

The company worked with an audio engineer to record the actual sounds of the tequila making experience from start to finish. Then they turned to Brampton’s own Wondagurl, a music producer prodigy who got her start in her teens, and has gone on to work with the likes of Drake and Rihanna, to create the soundscape.<\/p>\n

She’s quoted in Forbes Magazine<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original audio was seven to 10 years of the tequila making process turned into 10 minutes of audio,\u201d WondaGurl explained at a listening event in Miami. \u201cYou\u2019ll experience how sound affects taste. As you listen and drink, you\u2019ll notice how sweet and salty are amplified by high pitch, and flavours such as minerals and herbs by low pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The music producer worked with the raw sounds to work them into a soundtrack for the tasting event. \u201cI amplified certain things, just to bring out certain frequencies, added my little sauce to it,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt felt to me like I was scoring a movie, like the sound of walking or water dripping. To close your eyes and listen and just add to the feeling of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The science<\/h3>\n

Part of the impetus towards delving into the positive effects of pairing sound\/music and taste comes from other research into the negative effects of background noise. Some of that was driven by the restaurant industry.<\/p>\n

Another study<\/a> by Spence, along with researchers from Denmark, Colombia and the US, notes that marketing-driven initiatives have used a number of tactics, including using music that has been specifically composed for a specific pitch or timbre, as well as soundscapes, that match the flavours of the food or beverage in question.<\/p>\n

Their definition: \u201cThe term \u201csonic seasoning\u201d refers to the deliberate matching, or pairing, of sound\/music with taste\/flavour in order to enhance, or modify, the multisensory tasting experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology<\/em><\/a> in 2021, reviews the case studies on hand.\u00a0There are links between the chemical-related senses of taste and smell and our sense of hearing. It goes into the field of psychophysics, or the study of how our senses interact with physical stimuli. The science behind that goes back decades to research from the late 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n

Among the surprising findings of the review:<\/p>\n