Crossmodal congruency effects between sound and food pictures in a forced-choice task
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Crossmodal congruency effects between sound and food pictures in a forced‑choice task Caterina Padulo1 · Michela Mangone1 · Alfredo Brancucci1 · Michela Balsamo1 · Beth Fairfield1 Received: 19 November 2019 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Research using short musical sequences and musical tracks created by means of computer algorithms has demonstrated that individuals with or without musical skills can match these soundtracks to specific tastes with above-chance accuracy. More recently, a study that investigated implicit effects associated with crossmodal congruency/incongruency between auditory cues and food images found that such soundtracks are effective in eliciting facilitating effects of taste quality classification with congruent food images as well. In the present study, we tested whether this crossmodal congruency between auditory cues and food images may also influence food image choice by means of a forced-choice task. We selected and used sweet and salty soundtracks as stimuli and food images including both low- and high-calorie exemplars and asked participants to select which food they would prefer to eat (one sweet and one salty) while listening to the soundtracks. We found a general greater proportion of food choices in the soundtracks matching tastes conditions, and that soundtracks matching tastes are effective in influencing congruent food image choices, supporting previous research and adding new interesting outcomes.
Introduction Since the pioneering studies on audio–visual correspondences by Marks (1987, 1989), crossmodal matches or correspondences have been reported between most sensory dimensions and across all combinations of sensory modalities (for a review see Deroy & Spence, 2016). The term “crossmodal correspondence” refers to our cognitive system’s inclination to favorably associate specific dimensions of stimuli across sensory modalities (e.g., Klapetek, Ngo, & Spence, 2012). In particular, studies in the field of food science have demonstrated how people match, with above-chance accuracy, certain musical features with different tastes and flavors (e.g., Bronner et al., 2012; Crisinel & Spence, 2010a, 2010b; Mesz, Sigman, & Trevisan, 2011). For example, Wang, Woods, & Spence (2015) tested specifically designed soundtracks used in other experiments in a matching task (e.g., Knoeferle, Woods, Käppler, & Spence, 2015; Mesz et al., 2012) to determine which soundtracks exhibited the strongest association with one of the four basic tastes (bitter, salty, * Caterina Padulo [email protected] 1
Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial Science, University of Chieti, Via dei Vestini, 31, 66100 Chieti, Italy
sour, sweet). In their experiment, participants were free to choose one of the four basic taste words for each of 24 soundtracks, to determine which exhibited the strongest association with a given taste. Overall, the authors found that salty, sour, and sweet soundtracks, as intended
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