A large sample study on the influence of the multisensory environment on the wine drinking experience
Open accessAbstract
We report on what may well be the world’s largest multisensory tasting experiment. Over a period of 4 days in May 2014, almost 3,000 people sampled a glass of red wine in a room in which the colour of the lighting and/or the music was changed repeatedly. The participants rated the wine, presented in a black tasting glass, on taste, intensity and liking scales while standing in each of four different environments over a period of 7 to 8 minutes. During the first 2 days (Experiment 1), the participants rated the wine while exposed to white lighting, red lighting, green lighting with music designed to enhance sourness and finally under red lighting paired with music associated with sweetness. During the latter 2 days of the event (Experiment 2), the same wine was rated under white lighting, green lighting, red lighting with sweet music and finally green lighting with sour music. In Experiment 1, the wine was perceived as fresher and less intense under green lighting and sour music, as compared to any of the other three environments. On average, the participants liked the wine most under red lighting while listening to sweet music. A similar pattern of results was reported in Experiment 2. These results demonstrate that the environment can exert a significant influence on the perception of wine (at least in a random sample of social drinkers). We outline a number of possible explanations for how the sensory properties of the environment might influence the perception of wine. Finally, we consider some of the implications of these results for the wine drinking experience.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
An additive response, both in the brain and in behaviour, is expected when several sensory attributes are changed at once, bigger than manipulating a single sense individually.
“This is precisely the sort of situation in which one might expect to see an additive response (both in the brain and in behaviour), a response that is far bigger than that which can be achieved by manipulating a single sense individually at a time [106,194].”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [194]
The Background music and taste/flavour perception section says that combining congruent visual and auditory cues might produce an additive or superadditive effect, which supports the proposed larger behavioural response. It also presents visual dominance as an alternative; the Explaining the impact section says further research is needed to determine how the cues combine. Neither passage supports the claim about a response in the brain. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn a study with red wine, the wine was liked more, by approximately 5%, in the combined sweet music and red lighting condition compared to red lighting alone without music and compared to the control condition, with no changes in rated flavour intensity or freshness.
“In Experiment 1, the wine was liked more (by approximately 5%) in the combined sweet music and red lighting condition, compared to red lighting alone without music and compared to the control condition (white light, silence). However, there were no changes in rated flavour intensity or freshness (compared to fruitiness).”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [194]
Split into 2 atoms — 0 confirmed, 2 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn Experiment 2, the wine was rated as significantly fresher, an increase of approximately 14%, when tasted under green lighting while listening to sour music, compared to green lighting alone and to the control condition.
“In Experiment 2, the wine was rated as being significantly fresher (an increase of approximately 14%) when tasted under green lighting while listening to sour music, as compared to green lighting alone and to the control condition.”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [194]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 89 · Cited by 175
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Wheatley J: Putting colour into marketing. Marketing 1973, 67:24-29.
- Gal D, Wheeler SC, Shiv B: Cross-modal influences on gustatory perception. [http://ssrn.com/abstract=1030197]
- Sauvageot F, Struillou A: Effet d'une modification de la couleur des échantillons et de l'éclairage sur la flaveur de vins évaluée sur une échelle de similarité (Effect of the modification of wine colour and lighting conditions on the perceived flavour of wine, as measured by a similarity scale). Sci Aliment 1997, 17:45-67.
- Spence C: Sound design: How understanding the brain of the consumer can enhance auditory and multisensory product/brand development. In Audio Branding Congress Proceedings 2010. Edited by Bronner K, Hirt R, Ringe C. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlag; 2011:35-49.
- Bartoshuk L: Separate worlds of taste. Psychol Today 1980, 14:48-49. 51-54-56, 63.
- Obrist M, Comber R, Subramanian S, Piqueras-Fiszman B, Velasco C, Spence C: Taste experiences: A framework for design. CHI 2014, 2853-2862 [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2557007]
- Authors
- Spence, C., Velasco, C., & Knoeferle, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- BI Norwegian Business School (NO)
- Corresponding author
- Spence, Charles
- Venue
- Flavour
- Published
- 2014-10-01
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2044-7248 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2115748956
- Cited by
- 175
- References
- 89
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 13.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Flavour (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- BIBSYS Brage (BIBSYS (Norway)) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Fundación para el futuro de Colombia
- Pernod Ricard
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/L007053/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Sensory Analysis and Statistical Methods
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management › Wine Industry and Tourism
- Keywords
- multisensory perception, wine tasting, red wine, taste perception, flavor intensity, sensory environment, social drinkers
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
