Last week airline food caught the attention of many newspapers after we learnt how background noise could explain why it's so bland. We caught up with the author, Dr. Andy Woods, to find out the real implications of his research.
Restaurants, supermarkets, bars, cafés, shops, ships and airlines spend money to make themselves look good. It’s not a surprise and it helps their customers feel good and spend their cold hard cash.
But, some intriguing new research suggests that background noise can affect how we taste things - which could be well be important news for restaurant owners and airlines alike.
We caught up with the lead author of the study, Dr Andy Woods of The University of Manchester and Unilever R&D, to get the real perspective on what this study actually means.
The Interview - Dr Andy Woods on Background Noise and Taste
MB: Can you tell us a bit about the research you’ve just published and why you decided to study this phenomenon? On the face of it, it seems strange that noise can affect taste.
AW: Sure. We recently found that hearing background noise whilst eating dampens how salty or sweet a food can taste. We also found that louder environments might make crunchy foods feel even more crunchy. The research was inspired by a hunch that airline food quality is affected by the hum of the jet engines in the cabin. Our findings suggest that this background noise might well be having an effect.
MB: So, how did you test this?
AW: With their eyes closed, participants ate a variety of different food whilst listening to either loud or quiet background noise, or no noise at all. The food was then rated for sweetness, saltiness, crunchiness and liking over 2 experiments.
MB: How can noise influence taste then?
AW: We have two main hypotheses. One is that the noise sucks your attention away from the food, making it seem less flavour intensive. The other hypothesis is a sort of multi-sensory contrast. A song on your ipod seems so much quieter in a noisy background environment than in a silent room. The background noise may be dampening flavour as the noise is much more intense than the flavour.
MB: So, there could be some truth in Heston Blumenthal serving up ipods with the fish course?
AW: Hah! Maybe... This would occur via some sort of association or expectation effect, interacting with your perceptions of food taste. Hearing the sound of the sea can bring forward memories of saltiness for example, potentially enhancing the saltiness of the sea food you consume. Related to this, we recently found that food sweetness can be affected by expectations. Using a brain scanner we found that expecting an orange juice to taste very sweet acted to enhance brain activity in the part of the brain responsible for food taste, which hints that Heston’s intuition may well be correct (we’ve presented this research at the Human Brain Mapping conference and have recently submitted it to the peer review. Here is the link to the poster).
MB: What are the implications of this research?
AW: Well, we are still at an early stage of proceedings and this is a relatively small study to really draw definitive conclusions from but they suggest that the retail sector could well tailor their choice of food for a given environment.
MB: Hence the thoughts about bland airline food?
AW: Yes, exactly. This effect could play a role here, along with low cabin air pressure, possibly dry air (get in contact if you have done science on this!), or if you are an astronaut, a perpetual cold brought about by a change in how water is distributed in your body thanks to low gravity (thanks to Dr Ralph Scheicher of the University of Upsala, Sweden, for your help on this).
But it could go much further. Imagine that you are an owner of a night club or trendy late night bar renowned for its quality high end tunes. It’s going to be loud. You could tailor your choice of drinks to serve to your guests to counteract the impact of background noise.
MB: So it’s cocktails all the way? Are there any other benefits?
AW: Possibly. Loud background music might well be a blessing in disguise to dampen children’s taste buds when they take unpleasant tasting supplements such as cod liver oil. It could also have nutritional implications. Children are renowned for being difficult about eating fruit and vegetables.
MB: Along with many adults...
AW: Yes. So, if we can figure out background music or some sort of changed auditory environment for making fruits and vegetables more attractive, we could well help meet the recommended five a day. That could be important. Moving further afield, in some societies, such as Japan, food texture is more important than say in the UK. Japanese consumers could consider adding background sound whilst eating to enhance food crunchiness.
MB: This field of research seems to have many potential implications for the food retail sector and could well be important in the future. Can you give any direct advice right now to local bar owners or even airline companies?
AW: You’re right. We’ve got a long way to go on this and this paper raises a plethora of new questions that require proper scientific investigation. For example, can we use music to change our perception of food? What is the effect of tempo or vocals or indeed the style of music? Also, we know that background noise dampens food properties such as saltiness, but did you know that loud noise may also dampen pain? We mention about this in our article. Can we use this phenomenon to make injections for small kids less unpleasant?
MB: It also raises questions about the other senses?
AW: Exactly. The point is that there are a lot of unknowns, more research is needed but it could be applicable to many areas in the future. Yes, yes, I know it’s the standard answer of a scientist in interviews but it really is the case this time.
MB: Touché... Ok, can you say anything about your next steps?
AW: Yes. We’re currently investigating if music has an impact on food liking. This is a study at the University of Manchester and is again in collaboration with Unilever R&D. Very kindly, the Jelly Belly company have donated millions of Jelly Beans for the research. This will be running over the next year or so and hopefully we will publish the studies in the near future. Can you help? Yes. Get in contact (details below).
MB: Thanks very much Andy. Do you have one last thing you’d like to add and maybe how people can get in contact with you?
AW: Yes, if you have any suggestions for future research in this area, please get in contact with me (details below).
Links and Resources
If you want to read the original research paper, it is available in Food Quality and Preference (although it is behind a paywall, which is not so good)
Exclusive: You can download the full research paper legally from Andy’s homepage.
If you want to contact Andy you can email him here: Andy [at] opensourcesci.org
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Last Updated on Friday, 05 November 2010 15:35
