The Impact of the Multisensory Integration of Texture, Music, and Smell on the Taste and Pleasantness of Food

This study examined the effect of texture, music, and smell on the taste and pleasantness of food. Fifty-three volunteers assessed the bitterness and sweetness of carrots of three different textures (puréed, boiled, and chipped) while listening to music and/or smelling vanilla or coffee and evaluated the pleasantness of food with music, with smell alone, and with music and smell together. The auditory and olfactory stimuli used were either congruent or incongruent with bitter-tasting and sweet-tasting foods. We found that music or smell modulated food taste only when they were congruent with it. While congruent music or smell, presented alone, affected taste and hedonic valuation, their simultaneous presentation did not show a comparable effect. Further experiments with different stimuli or a combination of modalities would be necessary to draw final conclusions on whether the concurrent presentation of music and smell has an additive effect on taste.