Food Psychology- Changes in the world of Gastronomy
Is it only a tasty food and a decent service that counts for a ‘perfect meal ’ . For some, it may be but for Spence, it’s something totally different. And that’s where food psychology comes in picture.
Charles Spence is a professor of Experimental Psychology and a University Lecturer at Somerville College, Oxford University who carried out research methodologies to study human behaviour in terms of how environmental factors affect the way we experience food and drink and how we respond to fine dining and a perfect meal experience. His research looks at the various dimensions that accompany food and the effect of these dimensions both on the flavour of food and on the psychology of a diner.…show more content… Music psychology has a great relevance in the psychology of humans while eating food. This majorly connects from the fact that music can alter the mood of a human. The mood relates to the music being played.Previous research shows that genres of music can elicit different emotions, and that the enjoyment of some foods can be affected by emotions. For the first example, listening to metal genre of music while eating food at a restaurant can actually make the customer consume the food faster. The genre of metal is fast paced which in turn affects the speed of our eating. The second example given here could be of chocolate and music. The experiment conducted on ninety nine students showed that chocolate eaten while listening to jazz music made the chocolate taste much better and there was a better enjoyment. The students were made to eat chocolate again but this time while listening to hip hop music. The chocolate didn’t taste as it did for jazz and the chocolate eating experience was not as expected. The emotional flow of people is such that while in a relaxed ambiance with slow music playing makes them eat more and sit in the restaurant for a longer time. Experiments also showed that people who did not like a specific genre of music also had a tendency to enjoy their food better and eat more in the case of that specific genre playing in the background in a restaurant. One of the reasons of soft and instrumental music playing in a restaurant also relates to the fact that it does not disturb the customers in their conversation and this also helps again in turn to spend more time and eat more food. At the other end of the scale, a restaurant that places profit above dining experience often plays loud music with a fast tempo that subconsciously puts diners under pressure to eat more quickly, even if that means that they are less able to enjoy their