Can Music Make Food Taste Different? Science Says Yes

The taste and flavor of food (and yes, there's a difference) is established by more than what's in your mouth — they're also determined by what's in your ears. Taking the term "sound bites" literally, music and sound can influence our perceptions of how foods taste. We know that smell can influence approximately 80% of how food tastes to us, but sounds, and specifically music, also seem to share a lot of the responsibility. To determine what degree that sound influences taste, scientists have conducted experiments to find out if a restaurant's background music does more than just set the mood for the meal.

A team at the University of Oxford has experimented with what they call "synesthetic sounds," or specific sounds which might impact the taste of food. They discovered that high-pitched songs, such as "Emotions" by Mariah Carey, will make you perceive your food to taste sweeter, while lower-pitched ballads like "I'm Not the Only One" by Sam Smith can promote bitter tastes. Another group of researchers tested and found "sour" music, which they described as "high-pitched, fast, articulated, and dissonant sounds," increases the sourness in food, while "sweet" music reduced it. 

Both studies suggested that music-taste associations can be stimulated by a variety of sounds and flavors. But when observing what's happening in the brain and body, we can see these associations aren't hardwired — they're learned over time. As we experience life, our senses learn to work together and quietly influence how we perceive taste and flavor.

Scientists have probed further into the connections between sound and taste by investigating both volume and tempo. Sounds that are too loud can mute taste and flavor, making us believe what we are tasting is rather mild. Loud music can increase heart rate and blood pressure, prompting us to make less careful and even unhealthy food choices. Softer, quieter melodies have the opposite effect; they promote relaxation and can create thoughtful and likely healthier food choices. As for tempo, studies suggest fast-paced music makes us eat quicker, chew more intensely, and boosts our perception of sweetness and saltiness, while slow-tempo music can draw out meals and blunt those same tastes.

Emotion can also influence music-taste associations. If you're in an environment that makes you happy, you're bound to perceive the things you experience there, including food, to be more pleasant. Our feelings about certain food can also be enhanced by certain types of music. The short-term mood-boosting properties of foods like chocolate can be enhanced by upbeat music like jazz, while more bland sounds will not make a food with zero emotional impact like, say, bell peppers, any more pleasant to eat.

Restaurants can and have taken advantage of the connection between music and taste. They can play higher-pitched music during dessert time, or they can turn up the volume when they're ready to shut down for the night. All of these science-based discoveries prove taste and flavor are heavily controlled by other senses we have. This leaves power in the consumers' (and businesses') hands to have the food experience of their desired design.