Multisensory Perception in Food and Beverage Experiences
Summary
Human enjoyment of food and drink arises not solely from chemical stimulation of taste receptors but from the dynamic interplay of multiple sensory channels. Sight, smell, taste, touch and sound converge to shape our flavour perception, guiding preferences and consumption behaviour. Visual attributes such as colour and plating influence expectations, while orthonasal and retronasal aromas merge with basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami) to construct complex flavour profiles. Textural and thermal cues conveyed through oral touch further refine these perceptions. Simultaneously, ambient soundscapes and music engage crossmodal correspondences—consistent mappings between auditory features (pitch, tempo, timbre) and taste qualities—modulating taste intensity and hedonic experience. Together, these multisensory interactions underpin culinary innovation, inform product development, and offer avenues for promoting healthier eating and drinking habits across cultural contexts.
Research from Nature Portfolio
No recent Nature Portfolio content available.
Multisensory Perception in Food and Beverage Experiences publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in multisensory perception in food and beverage experiences across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Crossmodal correspondence: A systematic association between features in one sensory modality (e.g. sound pitch) and qualities in another (e.g. taste intensity).
Sonic seasoning: The deliberate use of sound or music to alter perceived flavour, typically by aligning auditory and gustatory attributes.
Intrinsic cue: Sensory information arising from the food or beverage itself, such as texture, aroma or visual appearance.
Extrinsic cue: Information conveyed by external elements like packaging, utensil shape or ambient environment that influences flavour perception.
Hedonic response: The degree of pleasure or displeasure experienced when perceiving a sensory stimulus, often measured by liking or enjoyment ratings.
References
- Tune Your Appetite: How Music Impacts Food Choice, Intake, and Emotions During a Meal. Food Frontiers (2025).
- Hand-Feel Touch Cues and Their Influences on Consumer Perception and Behavior with Respect to Food Products: A Review. Foods (2019).
- Multisensory Flavour Perception: Blending, Mixing, Fusion, and Pairing within and between the Senses. Foods (2020).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.