Amplify: Do You Hear EAT?

-Crack, crunch, munch!-

It's considerably part of the Filipino culture that we enjoy these delicacies.

Chicharon

(http://tenminutes.ph/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/chicharon.jpg)

Barquillos

(http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/62/7d/64/627d64d5bc3801eb4832fd9889c5989a.jpg)

Pinipig

(http://burntlumpia.typepad.com/burnt_lumpia/images/2008/04/23/img_3490.jpg)

Nakakagutom po ba?

[UPCAT]

"Puwede kumain, huwag lamang chicharon o iyong malutong, ha."

"Ang lutong naman niyan!"

Imagine yourself taking a standardized entrance exam for a University. You are told that you are allowed to eat, aside from crunchy food that can be deemed distracting. It is not only that chewing on crunchy food can be heard by other people. Something that is overlooked is that the overall experience of eating these “pika-pika” food or fingerfood may be associated with the sounds that we hear.

Oftentimes, these remarks seem on top of the head and shallow. The experience of eating is commonly linked to the sense of taste and smell. Past evaluation by food experts or "foodies" and chefs typically rank sound as the least considered sensory factor in rating a dish or drink. But interestingly, this is slowly evolving. A recent study verified that the sounds that we hear have an effect on our overall experience of the food that we eat! Charles Spence (2015) focused on the auditory aspect of a dining experience.  

Mr. Spence cited past studies in relation to crispness and crunchiness. One by Zata Vickers and her team (1981, as cited in Spence, 2015) found that food products that produce relatively high-pitched (5 kHz) biting sounds are often labeled as “crispy,” whereas crunchy food such as a raw carrot would yield 1-2 kHz. He also mentioned that this capability to acknowledge crispness can be associated to the evolutionary aspect – as we have to recognize what is fresh and what is not, for example, eating vegetables and salads. 

Zampini and Spence added that there are also sounds of carbonation, creaminess and squeakiness. Mermelstein and a few other researchers claim that subtle sounds contribute to one’s perception of creaminess (2013, as cited in Spence, 2015). Another unusual sound described is the one produced when eating halloumi cheese, which is described to be the stick-slip phenomenon, and produces a squeaky sound. Sonic cues are moreover, said to be readily present, whether we focus our attention or these or not.

Furthermore, we can observe that multi-national companies also highlight the auditory experience, such as the sound of carbonation and the refreshing component that it adds with Coca-cola’s new tagline – Taste the Feeling. This commercialization was also mentioned by Spence, particularly on the selling point of crunchy food – such as cereals and chips. Companies are said to claim that this crunch component aids in their success (Spence, 2015). 

The realm of auditory experience extends to the presence of background noise and its effect on our taste perception. Woods and co-researchers (2011) conducted a two-part experiment that evaluated the effect of background noise on ratings of saltiness, sweetness and liking and on flavor, crunchiness and liking. They found that in the presence of noise, characteristics unrelated to sound such as saltiness and sweetness were reported to be diminished. This is probably connected to why we tend to eat more in gatherings wherein a lot of people are talking and there is loud background music. However, properties related to sound such as crunchiness were perceived to be emphasized. The authors related such phenomenon to cross-modal contrasting or also known as attentional effect. 

When it comes to associations of sounds that we hear in our environment and chewing something, Spence (2015) shared about the experiment conducted by Jon Prinz. Prinz would out-of-the-blue play the breaking glass sound effects, or any similar unpleasant sound clips when the participants are about to bite the food provided. He reported that the participants’ jaws would freeze, and they associated this with the adaptive reflex that humans exhibit to survive. To further illustrate the effect of sonic clips, a group of Japanese researchers utilized recordings of participants chewing on rice crackers, with a crunchy texture and rice dumplings, with a chewy texture. Participants reported that the food eaten (whether it is a gummy candy, marshmallow, dumpling or rice cracker), when background rice cracker sounds were played, they described it as harder and dryer.

The auditory sense can also amplify other senses such as the sense of touch. Moreover, studies found that the sounds that we hear have various meanings depending on its context. 

The next time you eat your favorite snack, try to be more conscious and aware of how the crunch and crisp of each munch repackages the snacking experience. J

References:

Ro, T., Hsu, J., Yasar, N., C.,  & Beauchamp, M.  (2009). Sound enhances

touch perception. Experimental Brain Research. 195(1), 135-143. doi: 10.1007/s00221-009-1759-8

Spence, C. (2015). Eating with our ears: assessing the importance of the

sounds of consumption on our perception and enjoyment of

multisensory flavour experiences. Flavour Journal. doi: 10.1186/2044-7248-4-3

Woods, A., Poliakoff, E., Lloyd, D. M. Kuenzel, J., Hodson, R., Gonda, H.,

Batchelor, J., Dijksterhuis, G. B. and Thomas, A. (2011). Food Quality

and Preference. 22(1), 42-47. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2010.07.003