Listening to music can influence the way we taste what we eat, especially beer. Sounds have the ability to improve or reduce the power of our taste buds , according to a study led by the KU Leuven Campus Brussel University (Belgium) and which has been collected by the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
Thus, high decibels lower our perception of taste , suggesting that different types of multisensory information, such as sounds, sensations, shapes or colors, may influence the way we perceive taste.
The researchers designed an experiment to test whether the influence of music and beer packaging design led to a more positive tasting experience or not. For this, they had the participation of 231 volunteers who offered beer in three different ways: the first group was offered a bottle of beer with a label designed for the experiment; the second group was distributed the bottle of beer while playing one of the songs in which they had been inspired to create the label of the same “Oceans of Light” ; The third group was given an unlabeled beer and randomly played music.
Before tasting the beer, the participants had to assess how tasty they thought the beer could be and then reassess it after tasting it. The results showed that those who drank labeled beer and listened to the song “Oceans of Light” reported greater enjoyment and better taste of the beer than the rest of the study groups.
“ We have been able to see that people tend to take more pleasure in tasting drinks along with sounds that are part of the identity of the drink. In this case, we have shown that people who previously knew the song that was used in the experiment, not only liked the multisensory experience of drinking beer while listening to music, but also liked beer more as well. It seems that the added pleasure of the song was transferred to the taste of the beer ”, explains Felipe Reinoso Cavalho, leader of the study.
” We also want to understand how sounds can influence our decision-making process , in order to see if different sounds could, for example, lead people towards healthy food choices,” Reinoso clarifies.
