Perception, and the modification of toffee’s environs

Layla Eplett, in the Food Matters blog, explores a new study by Ig Nobel Prize winner Charles Spence:

“Each volunteer was given four pieces of toffee. Two pieces were eaten accompanied by a soundtrack of a lower pitched brass instruments. The remaining toffee was consumed listening to a high pitched piano piece. The result was a bittersweet symphony. Although all of the toffee was the same, volunteers rated toffee consumed during the piano music as sweet while pieces eaten with the lower pitched music were perceived as bitter….”

Here is a detail from the study:

BACKGROUND: The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize for nutrition was awarded to Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence [pictured here] of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is. [REFERENCE: "TheRole of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness ofPotato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence,Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004,  pp. 347-63.]