A sweet sound? Food names reveal implicit associations between taste and pitch
Abstract
Sounds (high- and low-pitched) have been shown to be implicitly associated with basic tastes (sour and bitter-see Crisinel and Spence, 2009 Neuroscience Letters 464 39-42). In the present study, a version of the implicit association test was used to assess the strength of the association between high-pitched sounds and names of sweet-tasting foodstuffs, and between low-pitched sounds and names of salty-tasting foodstuffs (experiment 1). A similar task, the go/no-go association task was then used to evaluate the relative strengths of these associations (experiment 2). Analysis of the sensitivity of participants' responses suggested that both sour- and sweet-tasting (names of) food items were associated with high-pitched sounds. This result highlights the existence of robust cross-modal associations between certain sounds and basic tastes.
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Specific auditory attributes are associated with basic tastes, both when presented as taste words and in the form of tasting solutions.
“Previously, it has been shown that specific auditory attributes are associated with basic tastes, both when presented as taste words (for instance, 'sweet'), and in the form of tasting solutions [80-88]”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [81]
Both sweet and sour tastes are mapped to high pitch, whereas bitterness is mapped to low pitch.
“For instance, both sweet and sour tastes are mapped to high pitch, whereas bitterness is mapped to low pitch [81,85-87].”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [81]
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- Authors
- Crisinel, A.-S., & Spence, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Crisinel, Anne-Sylvie
- ORCID
- Spence, Charles
- Venue
- Perception
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-01-01
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 417-425
- ISSN
- 0301-0066 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-4233
- OpenAlex
- W1974773678
- Cited by
- 108
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 10.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Perception (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Music Perception
- Keywords
- cross-modal associations, pitch, food names, sweet taste, salty taste, sour taste, bitter taste, implicit associations, basic taste
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Association, Candy, Female, Food, Humans, Male, Terminology as Topic, Pitch Discrimination, Taste, Sodium Chloride, Dietary, Young Adult
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