TAKING your date to a restaurant? Make sure the music is right, because sounds can make food taste better or worse, according to psychologists.
Researchers at Oxford University have found that higher pitched music improves your perception of sweet foods and deep tones work for bitter flavours.
Professor Charles Spence, Oxford University's head of Crossmodal Research, spends his time examining how our brains process the five senses and often cross over. When it comes to food this synesthetic response is obvious when we think of the connection between smell and taste, but Spence told NPR that all the senses play a role together: "Flavour is probably one of the most multi-sensory of our experiences ...all of the senses come together to give us that one unified experience of flavour."
In 2012 Oxford University researchers used an experiment in which participants were given toffee to eat and then played high and low frequencies. In the brilliantly titled paper "Bittersweet Symphony" subjects reported the toffee tasting bitter when low tones were playing and sweet when flutes or other high-pitched instruments were the dominant sound.