Human creativity is often studied in relation to idea-generation and problem-solving; yet a growing body of evidence suggests that creativity-related traits may also shape how we perceive and understand the world around us. In this study, we examined whether individual differences in creative disposition are associated with differences in crossmodal associations triggered by musical stimuli. A total of 97 healthy adult participants completed a crossmodal association task wherein they rated the extent to which short musical melodies could be associated with illustrations of everyday objects, followed by questionnaires assessing creative personal identity, creative self-efficacy, openness to experience, and creative activities. Using a Gaussian Mixture model-based clustering approach, we identified two participant profiles characterised by consistently high versus low creativity-related scores. By means of a Bayesian Zero-Inflated Beta-distributed Mixed Model, credible evidence was obtained that individuals from the former cluster, characterised by a broadly developed creative profile, gave higher association scores. Despite some uncertainty regarding its practical relevance, the effect showed a 95.82% probability of existence, suggesting that creativity-related traits may influence the crossmodal associations between musical and visual percepts.

IntroductionThis study expands our understanding of neurogastronomy’s various dimensions and addresses a critical gap in the literature concerning its conceptual structure. However, as a field of research, neurogastronomy lacks conceptual clarity despite its growing popularity. Drawing on Semantic Network Theory, according to which cognitive associations define conceptual understanding, this study investigates the field’s cognitive structure.MethodsWord Association Tests were conducted with 327 gastronomy students in Turkey.ResultsThe analysis yielded 16 codes and 6 themes, with “sensory experience and taste perception” emerging as dominant. The findings demonstrate that neurogastronomy functions as a fragmented rather than a cohesive concept within the cognitive network.DiscussionBy empirically mapping the field’s conceptual boundaries, this study provides a foundation for clarifying terminology and informing future theoretical and applied research.

This study investigates the impact of the size of salt particles on the perception of saltiness, dissolution behavior, and physicochemical properties with the goal of helping to optimize sodium reduction in solid foods while maintaining the taste/flavour. Static sensory evaluation demonstrated that fine-particle salt (<300 μm) elicited significantly higher saltiness intensity than coarse counterparts (≥400 μm), with the 100-200 μm range yielding the most pronounced perception. Time-Intensity analysis revealed that fine particles triggered an immediate perception of saltiness and a rapid peak, whereas coarse particles showed a delayed onset. Physicochemical characterization linked these sensory profiles to particle structure: dissolution rates increased exponentially as particle size decreased. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that fine particles possessed irregular shapes and high surface areas, while coarse particles formed porous cubic aggregates. Furthermore, X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicated higher crystallinity in smaller particles, contrasting with the reduced crystal integrity of larger, porous aggregates. Multivariate and multiblock analyses identified particle size as the primary driver of saltiness perception, with dissolution kinetics governing temporal onset and solubility determining maximum intensity. These findings suggest that finer particles (<300 μm) optimize saltiness delivery by maximizing initial sensory impact, providing a robust mechanistic strategy for developing high-quality, low-sodium solid foods.

Characterizing the heterogeneity of consumer preferences for binary taste mixtures is important for developing targeted sweet-sour products. This study used a multi-dimensional approach to investigate the sensory, conceptual, and emotional drivers of sweet-sour preferences by examining three key questions: whether distinct preference phenotypes emerge in mixed systems, whether these differences are related to perceived intensity, and whether clusters differ in cognitive characteristics. A total of 172 females evaluated citric acid-sucrose solutions with varying intensity ratios. Hedonic responses and taste intensities were measured using a 9-point scale and the generalized Labeled Magnitude Scale (gLMS), while Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) profiling was used to capture sensory, conceptual, and emotional characteristics. Clustering based on intensity-liking correlations identified three main clusters: SWEET, SOUR, and IU (inverted U-shaped). The results showed that preference heterogeneity persists in mixed systems, although the observed patterns do not simply mirror those reported in single-taste studies. Taste intensity alone did not account for preference segmentation. Instead, the clusters differed in their conceptual and emotional profiles: the SWEET cluster favored familiar, simple, sweet-dominant experiences associated with low-arousal emotions (e.g., ‘secure’); the SOUR cluster linked intense sourness to novelty and high-arousal emotions (e.g., ‘adventurous’); the IU cluster emphasized ‘sweet-sour balance.’ The sensory-concept-emotion framework suggests that preference heterogeneity in sweet-sour mixtures is shaped not only by sensory perceptions but also by cluster-specific conceptual and emotional associations, offering useful insights for personalized flavor design and market segmentation.

The market for digital avatars is expanding rapidly, yet consumer adoption and experiences with the technology remain uneven, highlighting the need to understand the psychological, social, and ethical effects of avatars. Building on interdisciplinary theory, we propose a conceptual model of ethical avatar design for consumer wellbeing, centred on self-congruence and humanisation, and moderated by realism and skills. The model integrates insights from the Proteus Effect, Computers-Are-Social-Actors framework, and Social Comparison Theory, and is operationalised through a self–avatar continuum that classifies forms of customisation. While avatars enable engagement, self-expression, and perspective-taking, they may also amplify risks such as stereotype reinforcement, Uncanny Valley effects, or idealized body standards. The framework presented here provides actionable strategies for designing avatars that align with user values, foster wellbeing, and encourage prosocial behaviour, offering both managerial guidance and directions for future research in marketing, health, and immersive digital environments.

The effects of both food temperature and ambient temperature have recently been studied in the context of food marketing and decision-making. However, despite the dominant role of culture-based metaphorical temperature, a characteristic rooted in traditional food culture, in shaping food preferences in many regions (e.g., Southeast Asia), its impact has been overlooked in previous research. Across three studies, this research investigated the effect of metaphorical food temperature on people's food choices. The results revealed that participants chose hot-natured (vs. cold-natured) foods when imagining themselves as experiencing ‘bodily cold’ (vs. ‘bodily hot’; Study 1), as these foods were perceived to be healthier under those conditions (Studies 2 and 3). These findings highlight the influence of culture-based metaphorical temperature on how people perceive the nutritional properties of foods.

The current paper investigates whether people associate certain emotions and visual features (specifically roughness, colour, and brightness) with different musical intervals. It was hypothesised that more dissonant intervals would be associated more with sadness and tragedy while more consonant intervals would be more strongly associated with happiness and hopefulness instead. It was further hypothesised that the relationship between intervals and emotional valence would be crossmodally mediated by roughness, brightness, and the warmth of colour. We also investigated whether providing an explanation of consonance and dissonance might affect participants’ ratings. A total of 303 UK citizens rated the brightness, roughness, colour warmth, and associated emotions (sadness-happiness; tragic-hopeful) of 13 musical intervals. The results indicated that participants associated more dissonant intervals with sadness and tragedy, with the relationship between the dissonance of intervals and emotional attributes mediated through roughness, warmth of colour, and brightness. Furthermore, those participants who had been provided with an explanation rated the intervals as more dissonant, sadder, and more tragic. The results reveal that the different musical intervals present in musical modes are responsible for the different emotions that are typically associated with certain modes and this relationship can sometimes be mediated by features presented visually.

Fusion cuisine blends ingredients, cooking techniques, and flavours from different cultures, yet little is known about how it is perceived within the context of gastrodiplomacy. This study explores perceptions of fusion cuisine at a multicultural gastrodiplomacy event held in Kosovo, where the participants first sampled Turkish-Kosovar fusion dishes during tasting sessions and subsequently completed an online questionnaire designed to assess their experience. In this event, participants attended structured tasting activities in Prizren and Pristina, where they sampled dishes combining elements of both culinary traditions, and then completed an online structured questionnaire consisting of 5-point Likert-type items evaluating their fusion cuisine preferences. The study was conducted in Kosovo as part of a unilateral gastrodiplomatic initiative. A total of 451 participants responded to an online questionnaire, which included fusion cuisine preference scores and metaphorical descriptions of their culinary experiences. A key contextual characteristic of this study is that data were collected exclusively during a fusion cuisine event held in Kosovo, with participation from a multinational audience who attended the event. Therefore, the sample reflects diverse cultural backgrounds within a single-location setting. The results indicate that younger, highly educated, and higher-income participants exhibited significantly greater openness to culinary diversity. These findings advance the state of knowledge by demonstrating that public reception of gastrodiplomacy is stratified by socioeconomic factors rather than defined solely by national background. Practically, this implies that effective fusion-based diplomacy requires targeted strategies to bridge demographic gaps and ensure broader social inclusivity, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.

Mental imagery (MI) engages neural and cognitive mechanisms that closely parallel those involved in actual perceptual processing, but it remains unknown whether food-related MI shows similar appetite-dependent modulation as food perception. Across two experiments, we examined (i) whether metabolic state alters the strength of food-related MI, and (ii) whether generating repeated food-related MI influences hedonic evaluations of food (i.e. chocolate cookies). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to generate flavour and texture MI using visual cues, in either a hunger or satiated state. MI strength, indexed by vividness, ease, and generation speed, was greater when hungry than sated for flavour MI only. In Experiment 2, liking and wanting for food samples were measured prior to and following 30 trials of flavour- or texture-specific consumption MI. Repeated MI did not alter the hedonic value of the food samples, but imagined liking declined across trials. Findings demonstrate that (1) metabolic state modulates the generation of multisensory MI, and (2) MI itself selectively adjusts imagined, but not perceptual, hedonic responses. The results reveal new findings on the interactions between MI and appetite, offering insight into the functional architecture linking simulation, reward processing, and metabolic state.

Physical touch plays an important role in various forms of immersive entertainment, influencing emotional engagement, presence, and narrative immersion. In this narrative historical review, we explore the significance of direct interpersonal (social) touch in entertainment contexts. This includes theme parks, immersive theater, participatory performance art, and digitally mediated touch (e.g., haptic feedback in virtual reality [VR], gaming, and film). By analyzing examples such as Disneyland character interactions, Sleep No More, and audience participation in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, we examine how physical touch enhances immersion by helping to break the fourth wall and by fostering audience agency. Additionally, we compare direct human touch with digitally mediated touch (e.g., haptic feedback in VR) and discuss their respective advantages and limitations. While digital touch offers flexibility and scalability, it often lacks the warmth (both literally and metaphorically), texture, and emotional nuance of actual human interaction and can struggle to reproduce the social meaning and attribution that shape affective touch. The review also highlights a number of the key challenges and boundary conditions in implementing physical touch in the context of entertainment, such as cultural variations in norms and comfort around interpersonal touch, privacy/consent concerns, hygiene concerns, and technical constraints. Future research directions include the integration of physical touch with emerging technologies, personalization of touch-based experiences, and the role of multisensory interactions in enhancing immersive storytelling. Understanding the mechanisms and impact of physical touch in entertainment can inform the design of future multisensory experiences, increasing audience engagement and emotional connectivity while minimizing harm and exclusion.

Abstract Many coffee preferences are known, but studies that comprehensively integrate simultaneous contributions to coffee enjoyment are lacking. An online citizen-science questionnaire designed to identify those factors associated with momentary coffee liking, surveying demographics, extrinsic/intrinsic qualities, and coffee-related habits, is presented (N = 2987; 5 continents; 7 languages; 11 countries; 77 nationalities). The results indicate a higher liking for coffee consumed black, during spring, in the morning, on Wednesdays, and from ceramic cups. Higher-priced coffee is appreciated significantly more, and liking-consumption quantity appears best-optimised at 4–5 cups/day. Several key characteristics for coffee-dislike are evident: waking-up late, drinking from a cup with a lid on, at noon during autumn, with cream, and, potentially implying a possible coping mechanism for bitterness-disliking, adding sugar to coffee. These results constitute the first multi-country cross-context integration of momentary coffee liking and provide an empirical foundation for context-sensitive models linking sensory/behavioural/temporal factors in beverage preference research.

The microwave oven can perhaps be considered as the first modernist kitchen invention. However, despite early gastronomic excitement over the potential of the 1940’s technology, there are few chefs or home cooks who celebrate using this kitchen device, despite the majority of kitchens nowadays being fitted with a microwave oven. Many of the safety concerns that were raised against the use of this technology since its widespread arrival in the home kitchen back in the 1970s have proven unfounded. At the same time, however, with the likely continued increase in energy prices (and other energy crises), the microwave oven should perhaps be re-evaluated, given that it constitutes a far more energy-efficient means of warming food than traditional ovens. Microwave cooking also represents a far more efficient means of preserving the nutrient, mineral, and anti-oxidant content in a range of fresh foods (e.g., vegetables). However, changing public perception will likely require a much better understanding of what, exactly, people object to concerning the technology: Is it safety fears, the functional inability to brown foods, the fact that it heats unevenly, or perhaps the sense that it is perceived as a lazy way to prepare (or reheat pre-prepared) food? Nudging people to embrace an energy-efficient form of heating food, and a nutrient-preserving way of cooking vegetables, will though likely require emotional as much as factual arguments.

In this narrative (historical) review, the emerging literature documenting those crossmodal correspondences that involve material properties such as texture and viscosity, as well as object properties, including shape and size, are both summarized and critically evaluated. Emphasis is placed on those cues to material properties that are available to the nonvisual senses. In this review, we explicitly connect the literature on multisensory shitsukan with the growing literature on crossmodal correspondences, specifically those involving material properties. This narrative historical review also draws attention to the possible material dependence of crossmodal correspondences - meaning, for example, that the existence of specific shape-taste crossmodal correspondences may depend on the material from which an object appears to have been made. This suggestion can be framed in terms of the context dependency of crossmodal correspondences, as has also been highlighted elsewhere in the literature.

There has been an explosion of interest in sonic seasoning in recent years, building on the emerging literature concerning the existence of consensual crossmodal correspondences between sonic and gustatory properties. However, to date, a musical match for the metallic taste has not been reported (nor looked for). Here, based on the authors' intuition, we tested, and by so doing demonstrate, that the sound of the theremin, associated with old sci-fi movies is strongly associated with a metallic taste.

Efforts to make markets more inclusive have largely centred on socioeconomic, demographic, or digital access, yet a more fundamental dimension remains overlooked, namely the sensory accessibility of the marketplace. Across physical, digital, and hybrid environments, firms increasingly capitalise on multisensory design to enhance consumer engagement. Yet, as sensory intensity, incongruence, overload, and complexity escalate, new forms of exclusion are inevitably introduced. Here, we advance the notion of sensory inclusion in marketing: Drawing on insights from marketing, psychology, and human–computer interaction, we argue that sensory overload constitutes an emergent axis of inequality. Moving beyond reactive accommodations, such as “quiet hours”, we call for proactive design and policy frameworks that treat sensory accessibility as an inclusion principle, that different sensory thresholds are needed to enhance the experience of all consumers. Recognising sensory regulation as a public good, we outline concrete policy and design pathways through which markets can stimulate engagement while minimising exclusion.

Musical modes (i.e., different patterns of pitch organisation within a scale) are widely recognised for their emotional character, yet little is known about the broader multisensory associations that listening to them might trigger. In the present exploratory study, we examine whether the full set of Western musical modes elicits systematic patterns of visual and olfactory mental imagery and whether these patterns correspond with how listeners spontaneously group the modes. In all, 249 participants generated open-ended visual and olfactory responses while listening to short modal excerpts and subsequently completed a free-sorting task. The results revealed a number of structured and recurrent imagery themes across participants (e.g., Nature-, Daytime-, and Happiness-related imagery for major modes, versus Dark-, Stress- and Sadness-related imagery for minor modes, alongside Floral-and-Fresh- versus Damp-, Dusty- and Smoke-related olfactory associations). Major and minor modes occupied distinct regions of similarity space across both visual and olfactory modalities; however, meaningful differentiation was also evident at the level of individual modes. This consistent relational structure across visual and olfactory imagery was likewise reflected in the grouping patterns observed in the free-sorting task. Together, these findings indicate that musical modes are associated with multiple sensory representations that extend beyond simple feature-level correspondences. These results therefore provide an exploratory mapping of visual and olfactory mental imagery and establish a foundation for future confirmatory research.

In recent years, numerous studies demonstrating the crossmodal correspondences between individual olfactory stimuli and both auditory and visual stimuli have been published. However, most commercial perfumes are more complex (both chemically and perceptually) than individual olfactory stimuli, incorporating designated top, middle, and base notes. What is more, it is unlikely that it will be possible to discriminate effectively at a population level between hedonic responses to, and rated intensity of, most commercial perfumes (given that they are deliberately created to be pleasant and to provide an intense and long-lasting scent). Perfumes, unlike other classes of olfactory stimuli, also tend to be strongly gendered (masculine, feminine, or occasionally unisex). As such, the matching of music to fine fragrance faces different challenges than when matching music to the aromas and flavours of food and drink (a much more common application domain for crossmodal correspondences research currently). In this review, we examine the emerging literature on crossmodal correspondences to assess whether empirical findings can provide any actionable insights when it comes to assisting those wishing to design music and soundscapes that, in any meaningful sense, translate a perfume into its auditory equivalent.

Temporal synchrony is widely recognized as one of the key factors facilitating the emergence of crossmodal correspondences and affecting their crossmodal effects. However, several issues regarding the definition of temporal synchrony and the mechanisms underlying its crossmodal effects remain open, depending on the specific experimental/perceptual context/stimuli used, as well as the influence of crossmodal congruency and structural (including isomorphic) crossmodal correspondences. In this review, we take a closer look at the literature that has been published in this area over recent decades in order to critically evaluate what is currently known concerning the crossmodal effects that are mediated by temporal synchrony. We focus especially on mid-level audiovisual crossmodal correspondences, defined as those that involve multi-element, or dynamic, auditory and visual stimuli. We examine the different experimental methodologies used and their limitations as well as the theoretical frameworks that have been proposed to account for the viewer’s impression of (and the meaning/affect that is associated with) such experimental audiovisual displays, including those that are based on the ‘Congruency-Associationist Model’, Gestalt perceptual grouping, as well as the phenomenon of multisensory emergence. Finally, we outline several directions for future research on temporal synchrony in the context of audiovisual crossmodal correspondences.