[Applause]
we eat first with our eyes now this is
an alleged quote from the Roman gourmand
and lover of luxury
Marcus galius Apicius who apparently was
quite partial to the particular flavor
of a flamingos tongue back in the 1990’s
as a naive teenager I spent a short
summer in France on an exchange and on
my first evening of awkwardness and
confusion my host family threw a party
for their eldest daughter who had just
graduated from high school and I was
handed a glass of champagne with the
grape on the bottom of the glass so in
not wanting to offend my French hosts
and their Gallic traditions of underage
drinking I knocked the champagne back
and popped the grape in my mouth and to
my horror instead of the sweet soft
juice filling my mouth I had just had my
first experience with an olive
salty dense shocking low leave and that
got me to thinking what was it in that
situation in that context that my senses
told me that I was going to enjoy a
sweet moment when in fact the opposite
was the reality and in that case I
definitely ate first of my eyes and what
I’m going to talk to you today about our
cross-modal sensory interactions that is
how our senses interact and more
importantly influence each other and
specifically in this talk with regards
to taste and flavor so before we begin
there are two terms which are often
misused and therefore need some
clarification taste so taste is often
used widths are in exchange with flavor
when in fact these are quite two
distinct two distinct but related
phenomena and taste refers to the
specific interactions between taste
compounds and taste receptor cells which
are mainly located in your mouth now
these taste receptor cells are found in
what we call taste buds and these are
visible to the naked eye as little bumps
on the surface of your tongue and if you
have a lot of free time in your life you
can count those bumps and it has been
shown for example that those people who
have more taste buds are more sensitive
to certain tastes and if you have above
a critical level you’re a super taster
which means you’re very sensitive to
specific tastes now contrary to popular
belief most taste can be observed and
perceived on most parts of the tongue
with the exception of bitterness which
is mainly concentrated at the back now
these basic tastes have evolved with
certain physiological and evolutionary
functions sweet with detecting energy
true sugars salty with maintaining and
monitoring electrolyte balance in the
body bitter with avoiding
toxins like point-like bitter tasting
poisonous berries
sour with maintaining body pH levels and
umami with monitoring protein intake and
in addition to these basic tastes there
are other cases which are currently
being investigated for example fatty
metallic cocoa me just to name a few and
in fact there’s up to about 20 which are
currently being investigated so watch
this space so what about flavor well
taste is one part of what flavour is a
flavor has been defined as the complex
combination of the olfactory cause
theory and trigeminal sensations
perceived during tasting and may be
influenced by tactile thermal painful
and or kinesthetic effects pretty cool
so in a nutshell what this is saying is
that flavour is a combination of what we
taste what we smell and what we feel in
our mouth and in our nose so flavour is
an integration of our senses a true
multi-sensory experience so how do our
senses interact and influence each other
well perhaps the most common example and
the most common way that we undergo this
on a daily basis is the effect of color
on taste and flavor now color and food
is probably the best clue we have as to
how that food would taste and we live in
a incredibly visual world but up to half
of our brain involved in the integration
of visual stimuli
whereas our senses of smell and taste
are use less and less compared to
earlier points in our evolution in 2001
there was a study and much talked-about
study which was carried out which looked
directly on to the effect of color on
flavor and in this test wine experts
were used as guinea pigs so wine experts
who are specifically trained to identify
and describe the complexities and
nuances
of wine flavor and this work was carried
out as part of the PhD project of
Frederick brochet in the University of
Bordeaux and what he did quite sneakily
was to take a white wine dye it red and
then give it to 50 for analogy that’s
wine science students along with the
original of white wine and what he found
was when these wine experts were
describing the aroma of the white wine
they use typical terms used in
describing white wine aroma
for example honey lemon etc but
extraordinarily for the red wine that is
the white wine that has to die in it
these wine experts use aroma descriptors
more normally used for red wine like
raspberry cedar and chicory so the
so-called experts were fooled by color
now the dye that he used was a tasteless
odorless dye and the wines themselves
were not even tasted so color was made
to fool their taste their sense of
flavor now this has since been confirmed
in another study in 2003 in New Zealand
where again
professional wine tasters fell into the
same trap and this time even when
tasting wines so it seems like colour
can influence how we perceive flavor and
if we think about colour the influence
of colour on flavors and tastes has a
lot to do with how we expect certain
colours to taste so look at the red
apple and the green apple you might
think in comparison to the green apple
that the red apple is a little bit more
sweet maybe a little less sour and that
the green apple may be a little bit more
tart and less sweet and it may be simple
ripening processes like this where food
changes color during ripening that have
taught us to recognize an associate
certain colors with certain
and from various studies and sources the
color black and purple and violet have
been associated with bitter tastes the
color of white with salty colors green
and yellow with sour and for example
reds and Pink’s with sweet now for those
of us in food production or god forbid
branding this type of information is key
in building and suggesting as to what
they expected flavor or expected taste
of the end product would be now there
have been examinations into whether the
intensity of the color of the food could
affect our perception of the taste so
could a darker red cause us to perceive
a more sweet taste for example and in
some cases this has been shown to be the
case in other cases not so the jury is
szilárd but what’s really cool is that
when something external to the food
something associated with the food has
been caused or has been shown to cause
us to perceive taste in a different way
and a beautiful example of this was
given in a study where an expertly drawn
strawberry flavored mousse was presented
on either a white plate or a black plate
to participants and what they found in
that study was when the strawberry
flavored mousse was presented on the
white plate the participants in this
study perceived it as 10 percent sweeter
than the strawberry mousse on the black
plate now these two mooses were the same
they have the same level of sugar and
chemically the reaction on the tongue
was the same but something was causing
them to over perceive sweetness in this
case the color of the plate so there
were tasting sweetness that wasn’t there
phantom sweetness staying in the visual
world moving a little bit away from
color certain shapes and angles have
been shown to suggest an elicit certain
tastes that we would perceive
sharp angles and sharp shapes tend to
remind us and elicit sour or bitter
tastes while more rounded shapes and
rounded angles suggest sweet and this is
used for example in a lot of famous
drinks brand brands again expertly drawn
by me here and in this case for example
if they’re using a red star a sharp red
star you might also recognize this so
the next time you’re drinking a beer or
have a look and finally see if you can
find any sharp shapes on that and either
for whatever reason that these are
present on the packages by tradition by
accident they’re still a very important
cue and almost a subliminal reminder or
subliminal influence on us as to what it
will taste like in these cases
suggesting bitter Christmas and also for
example it has been shown in a study by
angle and her colleagues that milk
chocolate and dark chocolate were
perceived as more round or more angular
on a scale without using any words and
when I was using any descriptive text so
it seems like we have some connection
between bitter tastes and sharp shapes
sweet tastes and rounded shapes and
let’s take this idea still one step
further certain funds– and certain
typefaces
have also been shown to affect how we
perceive taste and in her fantastic book
why fans matter sarah Hindman goes into
this very phenomenon and she uses simple
ideas to illustrate this very intriguing
idea and perhaps the favor of my
favorite example from her work is when
she asks a question about everybody’s
favorite font Comic Sans
and she asks does this font taste sweet
or taste savory salty now I think if I
was to put this in my mouth that gets
sick but it’s a pretty ludicrous
question to ask I mean we’re not putting
it in our mouth it’s not interacting
with our taste receptor cells there’s no
message being sent to our brain to tell
us which taste it is but there’s
something inherently sweet about it a
certain roundness of the letters that
would suggest sweetness and that maybe
is the reason why people continue to use
this ridiculous font because they didn’t
get sweet look at these to capita letter
A’s for example which of these is
sweeter to an eye on the left left yeah
right again an inherent sweetness that
would suggest and in her owners that
would suggest sweetness now it has been
shown that the fear center in our brain
is activated by sharp shapes and sharp
angles but not activated by round shapes
and this idea this this phenomena is
known as contour bias so it could be
that we have a certain affinity for
round shapes round funds and as
sweetness is something that we have
evolutionarily sought in food and food
products a link between the two would
start to make sense and conversely maybe
for bitterness so you could envisage a
situation where a font type on a package
could tell you about whether what you’re
going to eat is sweet or not and in fact
most of what we’re presented with in
terms of product packaging is already
driving our expectations and suggesting
to us as the expected taste so
I guess you’re probably all still
thinking about the olive right what was
it on that evening in rural France back
in the 1990’s that fooled a teenage
Kevin my senses told me to expect a
grape the color the shape of the grape
confirmed this and gave me no reason to
challenge the expected reaction having
never tasted an olive before my senses
fooled me into believing that I was
eating a grape a simple case tasting
with my eyes or then I was drunk very
drunk thank you
[Applause]
we eat first with our eyes now this is
an alleged quote from the Roman gourmand
and lover of luxury
Marcus galius Apicius who apparently was
quite partial to the particular flavor
of a flamingos tongue back in the 1990’s
as a naive teenager I spent a short
summer in France on an exchange and on
my first evening of awkwardness and
confusion my host family threw a party
for their eldest daughter who had just
graduated from high school and I was
handed a glass of champagne with the
grape on the bottom of the glass so in
not wanting to offend my French hosts
and their Gallic traditions of underage
drinking I knocked the champagne back
and popped the grape in my mouth and to
my horror instead of the sweet soft
juice filling my mouth I had just had my
first experience with an olive
salty dense shocking low leave and that
got me to thinking what was it in that
situation in that context that my senses
told me that I was going to enjoy a
sweet moment when in fact the opposite
was the reality and in that case I
definitely ate first of my eyes and what
I’m going to talk to you today about our
cross-modal sensory interactions that is
how our senses interact and more
importantly influence each other and
specifically in this talk with regards
to taste and flavor so before we begin
there are two terms which are often
misused and therefore need some
clarification taste so taste is often
used widths are in exchange with flavor
when in fact these are quite two
distinct two distinct but related
phenomena and taste refers to the
specific interactions between taste
compounds and taste receptor cells which
are mainly located in your mouth now
these taste receptor cells are found in
what we call taste buds and these are
visible to the naked eye as little bumps
on the surface of your tongue and if you
have a lot of free time in your life you
can count those bumps and it has been
shown for example that those people who
have more taste buds are more sensitive
to certain tastes and if you have above
a critical level you’re a super taster
which means you’re very sensitive to
specific tastes now contrary to popular
belief most taste can be observed and
perceived on most parts of the tongue
with the exception of bitterness which
is mainly concentrated at the back now
these basic tastes have evolved with
certain physiological and evolutionary
functions sweet with detecting energy
true sugars salty with maintaining and
monitoring electrolyte balance in the
body bitter with avoiding
toxins like point-like bitter tasting
poisonous berries
sour with maintaining body pH levels and
umami with monitoring protein intake and
in addition to these basic tastes there
are other cases which are currently
being investigated for example fatty
metallic cocoa me just to name a few and
in fact there’s up to about 20 which are
currently being investigated so watch
this space so what about flavor well
taste is one part of what flavour is a
flavor has been defined as the complex
combination of the olfactory cause
theory and trigeminal sensations
perceived during tasting and may be
influenced by tactile thermal painful
and or kinesthetic effects pretty cool
so in a nutshell what this is saying is
that flavour is a combination of what we
taste what we smell and what we feel in
our mouth and in our nose so flavour is
an integration of our senses a true
multi-sensory experience so how do our
senses interact and influence each other
well perhaps the most common example and
the most common way that we undergo this
on a daily basis is the effect of color
on taste and flavor now color and food
is probably the best clue we have as to
how that food would taste and we live in
a incredibly visual world but up to half
of our brain involved in the integration
of visual stimuli
whereas our senses of smell and taste
are use less and less compared to
earlier points in our evolution in 2001
there was a study and much talked-about
study which was carried out which looked
directly on to the effect of color on
flavor and in this test wine experts
were used as guinea pigs so wine experts
who are specifically trained to identify
and describe the complexities and
nuances
of wine flavor and this work was carried
out as part of the PhD project of
Frederick brochet in the University of
Bordeaux and what he did quite sneakily
was to take a white wine dye it red and
then give it to 50 for analogy that’s
wine science students along with the
original of white wine and what he found
was when these wine experts were
describing the aroma of the white wine
they use typical terms used in
describing white wine aroma
for example honey lemon etc but
extraordinarily for the red wine that is
the white wine that has to die in it
these wine experts use aroma descriptors
more normally used for red wine like
raspberry cedar and chicory so the
so-called experts were fooled by color
now the dye that he used was a tasteless
odorless dye and the wines themselves
were not even tasted so color was made
to fool their taste their sense of
flavor now this has since been confirmed
in another study in 2003 in New Zealand
where again
professional wine tasters fell into the
same trap and this time even when
tasting wines so it seems like colour
can influence how we perceive flavor and
if we think about colour the influence
of colour on flavors and tastes has a
lot to do with how we expect certain
colours to taste so look at the red
apple and the green apple you might
think in comparison to the green apple
that the red apple is a little bit more
sweet maybe a little less sour and that
the green apple may be a little bit more
tart and less sweet and it may be simple
ripening processes like this where food
changes color during ripening that have
taught us to recognize an associate
certain colors with certain
and from various studies and sources the
color black and purple and violet have
been associated with bitter tastes the
color of white with salty colors green
and yellow with sour and for example
reds and Pink’s with sweet now for those
of us in food production or god forbid
branding this type of information is key
in building and suggesting as to what
they expected flavor or expected taste
of the end product would be now there
have been examinations into whether the
intensity of the color of the food could
affect our perception of the taste so
could a darker red cause us to perceive
a more sweet taste for example and in
some cases this has been shown to be the
case in other cases not so the jury is
szilárd but what’s really cool is that
when something external to the food
something associated with the food has
been caused or has been shown to cause
us to perceive taste in a different way
and a beautiful example of this was
given in a study where an expertly drawn
strawberry flavored mousse was presented
on either a white plate or a black plate
to participants and what they found in
that study was when the strawberry
flavored mousse was presented on the
white plate the participants in this
study perceived it as 10 percent sweeter
than the strawberry mousse on the black
plate now these two mooses were the same
they have the same level of sugar and
chemically the reaction on the tongue
was the same but something was causing
them to over perceive sweetness in this
case the color of the plate so there
were tasting sweetness that wasn’t there
phantom sweetness staying in the visual
world moving a little bit away from
color certain shapes and angles have
been shown to suggest an elicit certain
tastes that we would perceive
sharp angles and sharp shapes tend to
remind us and elicit sour or bitter
tastes while more rounded shapes and
rounded angles suggest sweet and this is
used for example in a lot of famous
drinks brand brands again expertly drawn
by me here and in this case for example
if they’re using a red star a sharp red
star you might also recognize this so
the next time you’re drinking a beer or
have a look and finally see if you can
find any sharp shapes on that and either
for whatever reason that these are
present on the packages by tradition by
accident they’re still a very important
cue and almost a subliminal reminder or
subliminal influence on us as to what it
will taste like in these cases
suggesting bitter Christmas and also for
example it has been shown in a study by
angle and her colleagues that milk
chocolate and dark chocolate were
perceived as more round or more angular
on a scale without using any words and
when I was using any descriptive text so
it seems like we have some connection
between bitter tastes and sharp shapes
sweet tastes and rounded shapes and
let’s take this idea still one step
further certain funds– and certain
typefaces
have also been shown to affect how we
perceive taste and in her fantastic book
why fans matter sarah Hindman goes into
this very phenomenon and she uses simple
ideas to illustrate this very intriguing
idea and perhaps the favor of my
favorite example from her work is when
she asks a question about everybody’s
favorite font Comic Sans
and she asks does this font taste sweet
or taste savory salty now I think if I
was to put this in my mouth that gets
sick but it’s a pretty ludicrous
question to ask I mean we’re not putting
it in our mouth it’s not interacting
with our taste receptor cells there’s no
message being sent to our brain to tell
us which taste it is but there’s
something inherently sweet about it a
certain roundness of the letters that
would suggest sweetness and that maybe
is the reason why people continue to use
this ridiculous font because they didn’t
get sweet look at these to capita letter
A’s for example which of these is
sweeter to an eye on the left left yeah
right again an inherent sweetness that
would suggest and in her owners that
would suggest sweetness now it has been
shown that the fear center in our brain
is activated by sharp shapes and sharp
angles but not activated by round shapes
and this idea this this phenomena is
known as contour bias so it could be
that we have a certain affinity for
round shapes round funds and as
sweetness is something that we have
evolutionarily sought in food and food
products a link between the two would
start to make sense and conversely maybe
for bitterness so you could envisage a
situation where a font type on a package
could tell you about whether what you’re
going to eat is sweet or not and in fact
most of what we’re presented with in
terms of product packaging is already
driving our expectations and suggesting
to us as the expected taste so
I guess you’re probably all still
thinking about the olive right what was
it on that evening in rural France back
in the 1990’s that fooled a teenage
Kevin my senses told me to expect a
grape the color the shape of the grape
confirmed this and gave me no reason to
challenge the expected reaction having
never tasted an olive before my senses
fooled me into believing that I was
eating a grape a simple case tasting
with my eyes or then I was drunk very
drunk thank you
[Applause]
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