Food Quality and Preference 24 (2012) 201–204

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Food Quality and Preference

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual

Short Communication

A bittersweet symphony: Systematically modulating the taste of food

by changing the sonic properties of the soundtrack playing in the background
Anne-Sylvie Crisinel a,⇑, Stefan Cosser b, Scott King c, Russ Jones c, James Petrie b, Charles Spence a
a
Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
b
The Fat Duck Experimental Kitchen, Bray, UK
c
Condiment Junkie, London, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We report an experiment designed to investigate the consequences of manipulating the pitch of the back-
Received 29 June 2011 ground auditory stimulation on the taste of food. The participants in the present study evaluated four
Received in revised form 27 August 2011 pieces of cinder toffee while listening to two auditory soundtracks, presented in a random order. One
Accepted 30 August 2011
soundtrack was designed to be more crossmodally (or ‘‘synaesthetically’’) congruent with a bitter-tasting
Available online 5 September 2011
food whereas the other soundtrack was designed to be more congruent with a sweet-tasting food instead.
The participants rated each sample using three computer based line scales: One scale was anchored with
Keywords:
the words bitter and sweet. The second scale required participants to localize the taste/flavour percept
Taste
Crossmodal correspondence
elicited by the food (at the front vs. back of their mouth). The third scale involved participants giving a
Sound hedonic evaluation of the foodstuff. As expected, the cinder toffee samples tasted while listening to
the presumptively ‘bitter’ soundtrack were rated as tasting significantly more bitter than when exactly
the same foodstuff was evaluated while listening to the ‘sweet’ soundtrack instead. These results provide
the first convincing empirical demonstration that the crossmodal congruency of a background sound-
track can be used to modify the taste (and presumably also flavour) of a foodstuff.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction correspondences between the attributes (or features) of stimuli

Holt-Hansen was perhaps the first researcher to highlight the
existence of a crossmodal correspondence between taste/flavour
and the pitch of a sound (Holt-Hansen, 1968). The participants in
his study were instructed to taste one of two beers – Carlsberg
Elephant lager or regular Carlsberg lager – and then to turn the
knob on a signal generator until the pitch of the sound it made
‘matched’ the flavour of the beer. The results revealed that partic-
ipants matched the regular beer with a tone having a significantly
lower pitch (510–520 Hz) than the Elephant lager (640–670 Hz).
At the time, such results were interpreted as providing support
for the claim that we are all synaesthetic when it comes to multi-
sensory interactions between taste/flavour and sound (e.g., see
Holt-Hansen, 1976; Rudmin & Capelli, 1983). By contrast, though,
contemporary researchers have stressed that it may be more
appropriate to think about such effects in terms of crossmodal cor-
respondences instead (see Spence & Shankar, 2010, for a recent re-
view). The idea here is that all of us, no matter whether we are
technically (or clinically) synaesthetic or not, experience
⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Experimental Psychology,
University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK. Tel.: +44 1865
271307; fax: +44 1865 310447.
E-mail address: anne-sylvie.crisinel@psy.ox.ac.uk (A.-S. Crisinel).
presented in different sensory modalities. So, for example, most
people, no matter where they are born, will tend to match larger
objects with lower-pitched sounds, and smaller objects with
higher-pitched sounds. The suggestion from researchers is that
many such crossmodal correspondences result from the brain pick-
ing-up on the statistical regularities present in the environment. In
the case just mentioned, a larger object will, all other things being
equal, normally make a lower-pitched sound than a smaller object
(cf. Hooke’s second law). Such crossmodal correspondences may
also be captured by the metaphorical use of language, as when
we describe certain foods as ‘tasting sharp’ (Williams, 1976). Sharp,
of course, is actually a tactile descriptor.
Crisinel and Spence (2010) recently documented the existence
of a crossmodal correspondence between sweet tastes and high-
pitched sounds and bitter tastes and low-pitched sounds (see also
Simner, Cuskley, & Kirby, 2010; and Spence, in press, for a review).
Meanwhile, other researchers have reported the existence of a
number of other crossmodal correspondences between various
parameters of musical composition and specific taste/flavor attri-
butes (see Bronner, 2010; Bronner, Bruhn, Hirt, & Piper, 2008;
Mesz, Trevisan, & Sigman, 2011; Spence & Shankar, 2010).
The existence of such crossmodal correspondences between
audition and the tastes and flavours of various foodstuffs is there-
fore now reasonably well-established (see Spence, 2011). However,

0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2011.08.009
202 A.-S. Crisinel et al. / Food Quality and Preference 24 (2012) 201–204
one important question that has not, as yet, received a satisfactory
answer is whether, by ensuring that the soundtrack (or music) that
happens to be playing when a person tastes a particular food or
beverage item corresponds crossmodally, one can actually modify
the perceived taste of the food that they happen to be evaluating.
To date, the only empirical research on this question comes from
another of Holt-Hansen’s studies (Holt-Hansen, 1976). There, par-
ticipants were given one of six different beers/ales to taste while
a tone that was either expected to match the taste of the beer
(what Holt-Hansen called ‘the pitch of harmony’) or to be incon-
gruent with it was pulsed rhythmically. Several of the participants
(three out of nine) reported ‘extraordinary’ experiences when the
crossmodally congruent tone was presented. However, in hind-
sight, it is rather difficult to know what to make of many of them,
such as the following from one participant: ‘My right hand with the
glass of beer in it trembled so violently that I was suddenly afraid of
dropping the glass. I felt as if I was floating in the air. The tone was
intensified to such a degree that it sounded like a symphony orchestra
and the room was filled with it. My jaws were moving in and out with
the rhythm of the tone’.
In the present study, we attempted to conduct a more rigorous
psychophysical study in order to determine whether playing a
crossmodally congruent vs. incongruent soundtrack could actually
modulate the taste of a real foodstuff. We chose a food that con-
tained both a bitter and a sweet taste (given previous findings sug-
gesting that crossmodal auditory modulations of flavour might be
more prominent under conditions where different competing
tastes/flavours are present simultaneously; Spence, Shankar, & Blu-
menthal, 2011). We specifically chose bitter and sweet tastes as
these were the basic tastes that gave rise to the most extreme pitch
ratings in our previous crossmodal matching study of crossmodal
correspondences (see Crisinel & Spence, 2010). Condiment Junkie,
a sonic branding agency, developed two soundtracks based on Cris-
inel and Spence’s findings. These soundtracks were rather more
pleasant to listen to than a simple monotonous pure tone (and
hence potentially usable in the restaurant setting).
2. Methods
2.1. Participants
Twenty participants took part in the experiment (12 females,
aged 17–33 years). The participants gave their informed consent,
reported no cold or other impairment of their senses of smell
and taste, and no hearing impairment. The participants were in-
formed that they would be asked to taste toffee. The experiment
lasted for approximately 10 min and the participants were com-
pensated for taking part in the study with a £5 (UK Sterling) gift
voucher. The participants subsequently took part in another very
different experiment (to fill their experimental session). That study
is not discussed here.
2.2. Apparatus and stimuli
The cinder toffee used in the present study was prepared at The
Fat Duck experimental research kitchen, Bray, UK. The recipe uti-
lized the following ingredients: 225 g unrefined caster sugar;
37 g unsalted butter; 50 g Tate and Lyle golden syrup; 50 g Tate
and Lyle treacle; 3 g table salt; and 3 g sodium bicarbonate. The
procedure for making the toffee was as follows: In a pan over med-
ium high heat, caramelize the sugar to a deep brown caramel; Add
the butter, golden syrup, treacle and salt and bring to a boil; Whisk
in the sodium bicarbonate and pour on ton a tray lined with
greaseproof paper; Allow to cool before breaking into small pieces.
The auditory stimuli were designed based on Crisinel and
Spence’s (2010) results demonstrating that low-pitched notes
played by brass instruments are associated with the bitter taste
of caffeine, and that high-pitched notes played by the piano are
associated with the taste of sucrose. They were created using Logic
9 music production software (industry standard), installed on a
Mac G5. All of the sounds were presented in the key of F. The bitter
soundtrack consisted of a blend of sinewave-based synthesised
tones generated by the Sculpture Modeling synth and ES2 synth
plug-ins, pitched at F2 (midi note 41) and C3 (midi note 48). These
sounds were overlaid with a single trombone note also played at
F2, and a low frequency rumble created by passing a field recording
of car traffic in a tunnel through a low pass filter. The main element
of the sweet soundtrack was created from the Yamaha Grand piano
plug-in, passed through Space Designer reverb unit set to 100% wet
and 10% dry (so mostly only the reverb is heard). The notes move in
legato through the F scale pitched around C4–C6 (midi notes 60–
84). This sound is overlaid with a sinewave-based synthesised tone
generated by the Sculpture Modelling synth plug-in in the same
pitch, as well as abstractions of the piano sound created by resam-
pling and reversing the sound several times. These soundscapes are
available at: www.condimentjunkie.co.uk. A control experiment
was conducted to check that people would indeed associate the
two soundtracks with bitter and sweet tastes, respectively.
Thirty-one new participants (aged 23–36) were asked to rate the
soundtracks on a bitter-sweet 9-point scale. The difference be-
tween the ratings of the two soundtracks was significant,
M = 2.97, SD = 1.14, M = 6.68, SD = 1.78, t(30) = 8.47, p < .001.
2.3. Design and procedure
The experiment was conducted with participants sitting at a
table in a darkened experimental booth. The participants sat in
front of a computer monitor and responded by using the mouse.
The auditory stimuli were presented over Beyer Dynamic head-
phones at a level of approximately 70 dB. The participants were
presented with four small pieces of the cinder toffee (approxi-
mately 0.3 g) to taste. They were not informed that the four sam-
ples were identical. Each trial started with one of the
soundtracks being presented at the time a toffee sample was given
to the participant, i.e., a few seconds before they tasted the sample.
The soundtrack lasted for 40 s, during which the participants were
given three response scales to score. They were asked a question in
relation to each scale, namely: Is the food bitter or sweet? How
much do you like the taste/flavour? Where in your mouth do you
experience the flavour? They responded by indicating a point on
a 9-point computer-based scale. Each scale was anchored with a
pair of terms (bitter (earthy)/sweet, back of the mouth/tip of ton-
gue, not at all/very much). The term ‘earthy’ was added following
pilot testing with a few participants. The scales were presented
in a random order. Each participant tasted four samples in total,
two with each of the soundscapes. The order of presentation of
the soundscapes was random.
3. Results
The mean ratings on each scale (see Fig. 1) were analysed using
a separate paired-samples t-test. There was a significant effect on
the bitter-sweet scale, on which participants rated the toffee as
less sweet when presented with the ‘bitter’ soundtrack (M = 4.70,
SD = 1.52) than when it was presented with the ‘sweet’ soundtrack
(M = 5.40, SD = 1.29), t(19) = 2.284, p = .034, r = .46. However, no
such effect was found on either of the other response scales (for
position, M = 4.55, SD = 1.79 with the ‘bitter’ soundtrack,
M = 5.00, SD = 1.29 with the ‘sweet’ soundtrack, t(19) = 1.564,
 A.-S. Crisinel et al. / Food Quality and Preference 24 (2012) 201–204
Fig. 1. The results of the experiment highlighting the effect of the auditory
soundtrack (‘bitter’ vs. ‘sweet’) on participants’ ratings on the bitter-sweet scale, the
back–front (of mouth) scale, and the hedonic rating scale. The asterisk highlights a
significant difference between the conditions (p < .05). The error bars represent the
SEM.
p = .134, r = .34; and for pleasantness, M = 5.30, SD = 1.72 with the
‘bitter’ soundtrack, M = 5.75, SD = 1.40 with the ‘sweet’ soundtrack,
t(19) = 1.027, p = .317, r = .23). The correlation between the ratings
of bitterness and position was significant, while the other correla-
tions between ratings were not (see Table 1).
4. Discussion
The results reported here demonstrate that the taste of a food
can be systematically altered by playing a soundscape that shares
a crossmodal correspondence with the taste in question (cf. Holt-
Hansen, 1976). Based on Crisinel and Spence’s (2010) recent psy-
chophysical research, two soundscapes were created for use in
the present study. One soundtrack was designed to complement
the bitter taste present in the foodstuff (cinder toffee), while the
other was designed to match the sweet taste instead. The ‘bitter’
soundtrack contained a predominance of low-pitched sounds,
whereas the ‘sweet’ soundtrack was comprised of sounds having
a higher pitch. As predicted, the results demonstrated that partic-
ipants rated the sweet taste of the cinder toffee as being signifi-
cantly more intense (that is, their responses were significantly
closer to the sweet end of the response scale) when listening to
the ‘sweet’ soundtrack than when listening to the ‘bitter’ sound-
track instead. These results therefore provide the first robust
empirical demonstration that the crossmodal congruency of the
background music/soundscapes we listen to really can influence
the taste of the food we eat and presumably also the beverages
we drink (see also Ferber & Cabanac, 1987; Woods et al., 2011).
Although there were numerical trends in the data reported for
the other two response scales they failed to reach statistical signif-
icance. It is at least possible that these trends would have reached
statistical significance had a much larger number of participants
been tested. It is perhaps also worth noting, in passing, that in-
creased bitter ratings were correlated with participants localizing
the flavour experience further toward the back of their mouth
(see Table 1). This might have been caused by the popular belief
that bitterness is tasted at the back of the tongue, and sweetness
at the front, even though recent research has demonstrated that
it is not the case (see Chandrashekar, Hoon, Ryba, & Zuker, 2006).
Table 1
Pearson correlation coefficients between the three ratings.
Sweetness Pleasantness Position
Sweetness 1.000 .180 .332
Pleasantness .180 1.000 .110
Position .332 .110 1.000
Bold indicates significant correlations (p < 0.05).
203
The results of the present study go beyond several recent stud-
ies demonstrating the existence of crossmodal correspondences
between tastes/flavours/oral-somatosensory experiences and vari-
ous attributes of auditory stimuli (e.g., Bronner, 2010; Bronner
et al., 2008; Crisinel & Spence, 2010; Holt-Hansen, 1968; Mesz
et al., 2010; Rudmin & Capelli, 1983; Spence & Shankar 2010), by
showing that the actual taste of a foodstuff can be altered by play-
ing auditory stimuli that (on the basis of laboratory research;
Crisinel & Spence, 2010) either correspond crossmodally or not.
At this stage, we can do little more than speculate as to the neu-
ral mechanism underlying the crossmodal effect of sound on taste
perception reported here. However, two possibilities immediately
spring to mind, one in terms of multisensory integration, the other
in terms of expectancy effects and ‘sensation transference’
(Cheskin, 1972). The idea that the soundscape may have influenced
participants’ perception of the taste of the cinder toffee because of
the multisensory integration of the two component unimodal
stimuli (see Calvert, Spence, & Stein, 2004) is supported by anec-
dotal reports from chefs who experienced a change in taste when
the soundtracks were changed while tasting the toffee. That said,
the fact that the onset of the auditory and gustatory stimuli oc-
curred at different times, and were localized to different locations,
should presumably have reduced the likelihood that these two sig-
nals were integrated.
The second hypothesis is that the soundtrack, which was pre-
sented at the same time as the toffee samples, and, importantly,
could be heard a few seconds before the participants actually
started to taste the sample, may have induced expectations (possi-
bly subconscious) that, in turn, influenced the perceived taste of
the food that was subsequently consumed. This explanation for
the data is supported by previous research underlining the power-
ful effects expectations can have on sensory evaluations (e.g., see
Deliza & MacFie, 1996, for a review). The idea here is that when
a stimulus is presented in one sensory modality it may prime those
sensory attributes that correspond crossmodally with it. So, for
example, in the example of the low-pitch and large objects men-
tioned earlier, it may well be that whenever we hear a low-pitched
sound we are primed for large object. Such a crossmodal priming
effect may then affect our perception and responses when another
stimulus is then presented (see also Spence, in press). Thus, in the
case of the present study, the lower-pitched soundscape may have
set up an unconscious expectation that primed bitterness in the
minds of our participants (see Spence, in press, for a fuller account
of this view).
Here, it is worth noting that such effects can also be described in
terms of Cheskin’s (1972) idea of ‘sensation transference’. Cheskin
argued that the sensory features of the atmosphere in which we
evaluate a product (not to mention also the sensory features of
the packaging in which the product is presented), be it a food item
or something else, can be transferred such that they influence a
person’s impression of the sensory qualities/attributes of the thing
being evaluated. Importantly, when questioned directly, Cheskin
found that most consumers would vociferously deny the influence
of such product extrinsic factors on their judgments. Nevertheless,
indirect tests demonstrated that such product extrinsic (or atmo-
spheric) factors were influencing people’s perception.
While it is certainly true that previous research has repeatedly
demonstrated that the tempo and type of music (e.g., the semantic
associations that certain pieces or styles of music have with partic-
ular countries or regions; see North & Hargreaves, 2008; Spence &
Shankar, 2010) can influence everything from what we choose to
eat and drink, how much we are willing to pay for it, and even
what it tastes like, this is the first study to demonstrate such cross-
modal effects based on the crossmodal correspondence between
the pitch and timbre of a soundtrack and the taste (bitter vs. sweet)
of a real foodstuff. In future research, it would be interesting to
204 A.-S. Crisinel et al. / Food Quality and Preference 24 (2012) 201–204
extend these results to other tastes, not to mention more complex
and competing flavours.
Acknowledgement
Anne-Sylvie Crisinel would like to thank the Berrow Foundation
for funding her research.
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