Wine and music (III): so what if music influences the taste of the wine?

A growing body of evidence, both anecdotal and scientifically rigorous, now points to the fact that what people taste when evaluating a wine, not to mention how much they enjoy the experience, can be influenced by the specifics of any music that happens to be playing at the same time. The question that we wish to address here is ‘So what?’ Why should anyone care that music (or, for that matter, specially composed soundscapes) exert(s) a crossmodal influence over the wine-tasting experience? ‘Why not just drink great wine and forget about the music?’ a sceptic might ask. Here, we outline a number of the uses that such research findings have been put to in the marketplace, in experiential events, in artistic performances, and in terms of furthering our theoretical understanding of those factors that influence the tasting experience. We also highlight how the latest in technology (think sensory apps and hyperdirectional loudspeakers, not to mention digitally augmented glassware) augurs well for those wanting to deliver the most stimulating, the most memorable, and certainly the most multisensory of tasting experiences in the years to come. Demonstrations of sound’s influence on wine perception will most likely be applicable to a variety of other drinks and foods too. Ultimately, the argument is forwarded that there are many reasons, both theoretical and applied, as to why we should all care about the fact that what we listen to can change the sensory-discriminative, the descriptive, and the hedonic attributes of what we taste

The effects of music choice on task performance: A study of the impact of self-selected and experimenter-selected music on driving game performance and experience

Music listening in everyday life tends to accompany the completion of other everyday activities in a highly personalised manner. However, music and task performance studies have tended to be experimenter-centred and contextually isolated, largely independent of the listener s music practices and preference. The present study adopted a listener-centred approach to compare the effects of self-selected and experimenter-selected music (high and low arousal), on concurrent activity performance and experience. 125 participants completed three laps of a driving game in either (i) silence (ii) car sounds alone; car sounds with the addition of (iii) self-selected music, (iv) High-Arousal music or (v) Low-Arousal music. Three performance measures (accuracy-collisions, time-ms, and speed-mph) and 5 experience measures (distraction, liking, appropriateness, enjoyment, and tension-anxiety) were taken. Participants exposed to their self-selected music were most efficient, perceived lowest distraction, highest enjoyment, liking and appropriateness, and experienced a reduction in tension-anxiety. In contrast, performance and experience were poorest when exposed to High-Arousal experimenter-selected music. Participants were most inaccurate, perceived highest distraction, lowest liking, enjoyment and appropriateness, and experienced an increase in tension-anxiety. Collectively, the findings highlight the efficacy of self-selected music as a tool to optimise response in the everyday activity context for which it is selected. Accordingly, the results are discussed in relation to potential implications for the performance and experience of concurrent tasks such as video games. Additionally, the discussion highlights theories of attention-distraction, arousal and affect modification, and subjective experiences of music listening