TY - JOUR

T1 - Sounds Healthy

T2 - Modelling sound-evoked consumer food choice through visual attention

AU - Peng-Li, Danni

AU - Mathiesen, Signe L.

AU - Chan, Raymond C.K.

AU - Byrne, Derek V.

AU - Wang, Qian Janice

N1 - Funding Information: The research was supported by the Graduate School of Science and Technology, Aarhus University and the Sino-Danish College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (DPL) as well as a starting grant from the Aarhus University Research Foundation (QJW). The authors would like to thank Kiara Heide and Tue Hvass from the iMotions® Customer Success Team for facilitating the eye-tracking design and Yihang Huang for assisting the participant recruitment in China. Publisher Copyright: © 2021

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Food choice is a multifaceted construct that is not solely guided by our internal incentives. In fact, sensory scientist, consumer psychologists, and marketers have demonstrated that external ambient cues, including background music, can influence myriads of subconscious consumer behaviors, effectively leading to increased sales of food and beverages. However, the vast majority of literature in on this topic has thus far been confined to monocultural field studies in which the underlying mechanisms of food choice are unexplored. We therefore studied the explicit and implicit effects of custom-composed soundtracks on food choices and eye-movements in consumers from both 'East' and 'West'. Firstly, based on the results from a pre-study (N = 396), we composed a ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ soundtrack. Subsequently, we recruited 215 participants from China (n = 114) and Denmark (n = 101) respectively for in an in-laboratory eye-tracking food choice paradigm. For each culture, half of the participants listened to the ‘healthy’ soundtrack and the other half to the ‘unhealthy’ soundtrack during the experiment. Chi-square tests of independence revealed that across cultures, the healthy (vs. unhealthy) soundtrack led to more healthy food choices. Similarly, the generalized linear mixed models showed that the healthy soundtrack induced more and longer fixations on healthy (vs. unhealthy) food. Finally, a multiple mediation analysis signified a partial mediation effect of sound on food choice through the mediators of fixation duration, fixation count, and revisit count. Our results indicate that, with strategically chosen soundscapes, it is possible to influence consumers' decision-making processes and guide their attention towards healthier foods, providing valuable knowledge for local as well as global food business.

AB - Food choice is a multifaceted construct that is not solely guided by our internal incentives. In fact, sensory scientist, consumer psychologists, and marketers have demonstrated that external ambient cues, including background music, can influence myriads of subconscious consumer behaviors, effectively leading to increased sales of food and beverages. However, the vast majority of literature in on this topic has thus far been confined to monocultural field studies in which the underlying mechanisms of food choice are unexplored. We therefore studied the explicit and implicit effects of custom-composed soundtracks on food choices and eye-movements in consumers from both 'East' and 'West'. Firstly, based on the results from a pre-study (N = 396), we composed a ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ soundtrack. Subsequently, we recruited 215 participants from China (n = 114) and Denmark (n = 101) respectively for in an in-laboratory eye-tracking food choice paradigm. For each culture, half of the participants listened to the ‘healthy’ soundtrack and the other half to the ‘unhealthy’ soundtrack during the experiment. Chi-square tests of independence revealed that across cultures, the healthy (vs. unhealthy) soundtrack led to more healthy food choices. Similarly, the generalized linear mixed models showed that the healthy soundtrack induced more and longer fixations on healthy (vs. unhealthy) food. Finally, a multiple mediation analysis signified a partial mediation effect of sound on food choice through the mediators of fixation duration, fixation count, and revisit count. Our results indicate that, with strategically chosen soundscapes, it is possible to influence consumers' decision-making processes and guide their attention towards healthier foods, providing valuable knowledge for local as well as global food business.

KW - Background music

KW - Consumer behavior

KW - Cross-culture

KW - Eye-tracking

KW - Healthy food choice

KW - Multisensory

U2 - 10.1016/j.appet.2021.105264

DO - 10.1016/j.appet.2021.105264

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33865905

AN - SCOPUS:85107367050

VL - 164

JO - Appetite

JF - Appetite

SN - 0195-6663

M1 - 105264

ER -