TY - JOUR

T1 - Tune that beer! listening for the pitch of beer

AU - Carvalho, Felipe Reinoso

AU - Wang, Qian (Janice)

AU - de Causmaecker, Brecht

AU - Steenhaut, Kris

AU - van Ee, Raymond

AU - Spence, Charles

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments: FRC was partly funded by the CAPES Foundation, Brazil (BEX 3488/13-6). RvE was supported by the Flemish Methusalem program (METH/14/02 to J. Wagemans), the EU Horizon 2020 program (HealthPac to J. van Opstal), and the Flemish Organization for Scientific Research (FWO). This research was also supported by the Rethinking the Senses grant from the AHRC (UK) awarded to Charles Spence (AH/L007053/1). We would also like to thank François Nelissen, Yvan de Baets, Peter Pasoli, Ilja Van Braeckel, Matthias Carlier, Maite Bezunartea, Ta Kim Hue, Marie-Paule Uwase, and Bruno da Silva for their contribution to various parts of this project. Finally, we would also like to thank the crew from ‘La Brasserie de la Senne’, for producing and donating the beer samples used in this study. Publisher Copyright: © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - We report two experiments designed to assess the key sensory drivers underlying people’s association of a specific auditory pitch with Belgian beer. In particular, we assessed if people would rely mostly on the differences between beers in terms of their relative alcohol strength, or on the contrast between the most salient taste attributes of the different beers. In Experiment 1, the participants rated three bitter beers (differing in alcohol content), using a narrow range of pitch choices (50–500 Hz). The results revealed that the beers were all rated around the same pitch (Mean = 232 Hz, SD = 136 Hz). In Experiment 2, a wider range of pitch choices (50–1500 Hz), along with the addition of a much sweeter beer, revealed that people mostly tend to match beers with bitter-range profiles at significantly lower pitch ranges when compared to the average pitch of a much sweeter beer. These results therefore demonstrate that clear differences in taste attributes lead to distinctly different matches in terms of pitch. Having demonstrated the robustness of the basic crossmodal matching, future research should aim to uncover the basis for such matches and better understand the perceptual effects of matching/non-matching tones on the multisensory drinking experience.

AB - We report two experiments designed to assess the key sensory drivers underlying people’s association of a specific auditory pitch with Belgian beer. In particular, we assessed if people would rely mostly on the differences between beers in terms of their relative alcohol strength, or on the contrast between the most salient taste attributes of the different beers. In Experiment 1, the participants rated three bitter beers (differing in alcohol content), using a narrow range of pitch choices (50–500 Hz). The results revealed that the beers were all rated around the same pitch (Mean = 232 Hz, SD = 136 Hz). In Experiment 2, a wider range of pitch choices (50–1500 Hz), along with the addition of a much sweeter beer, revealed that people mostly tend to match beers with bitter-range profiles at significantly lower pitch ranges when compared to the average pitch of a much sweeter beer. These results therefore demonstrate that clear differences in taste attributes lead to distinctly different matches in terms of pitch. Having demonstrated the robustness of the basic crossmodal matching, future research should aim to uncover the basis for such matches and better understand the perceptual effects of matching/non-matching tones on the multisensory drinking experience.

KW - Alcohol content

KW - Beer

KW - Crossmodal correspondences

KW - Flavor

KW - Pitch

KW - Sound

KW - Taste

U2 - 10.3390/beverages2040031

DO - 10.3390/beverages2040031

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85027546109

VL - 2

JO - Beverages

JF - Beverages

SN - 2306-5710

IS - 4

M1 - 31

ER -