Can Music change the rating of wine tastings? AAWE Meeting - Ithaca 2018 Can Music change the rating of wine tastings? Britta Niklas

Can Music change the rating of wine tastings? Introduction / Literature Experiment and Data Methodological approach Results Conclusion AAWE – Ithaca 2018

“Enters the ear, stays in the head” suggests, 1. Introduction / Literature “Enters the ear, stays in the head” suggests, that auditive signals are able to alter our sensation. Growing body of research: what we listen to can change what we taste. Many sensory experiences (crispy, crackly, …)- largely depend on associated sounds. (Spence 2015a). www.myrecipes.com AAWE – Ithaca 2018

1. Introduction / Literature Crossmodal effects - result from multisensory integration: Spence (2015): Our brain tries to integrate inputs from different senses that belong to same food or drink. Wesson and Wilson (2010): direct neural connections between ear and nose. Peeples (2010) called this merged sense "Smound" and found out: loud sound might be able to suppress the olfactory function. Question: Can background sound impact on the taste and flavor of food and drinks? www.westchesterwineguy.com AAWE – Ithaca 2018

1. Introduction / Literature Wine tastings: hard to determine objective measures (heterogenous consumers). Lecocq, Visser (2006) Price information is seen to be an important determinant for the rating of wines. Brochet (2001) and Plassmann et al. (2008) No price information: other influences (like sensory ones) affect tasting experience. Spence et al. (2013) with London Symphony Orchestra ran an experiment: People rated wines 10-12 % higher when matching music was played. Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence (2015): right match of music and food/drink makes the taste more authentic. AAWE – Ithaca 2018

(Comparison of regions) 1. Introduction Research Questions: Do participants of wine tastings rank the wine of a region higher than wines of other regions while listening to matching music of the region? (Comparison of regions) 2. Is the wine of a certain region rated higher, when matching music of the respective region is played during the tasting? (Judgement of each wine) AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Regional Wine Judgement 1. Introduction Matching Music Wine tasting Regional Wine Judgement Hypothesis: Matching Music has a positive impact on the regional wine judgement! AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Pedestrians were randomly asked to take part. Self Selection problem! 2. Experiment and Data Wine tasting at the „Blaupause“ – celebration of 50th birthday of Ruhr-University Bochum! +/- 100.000 visitors Pedestrians were randomly asked to take part. Self Selection problem! White Wine tasting: 112 participants Red Wine tasting: 92 participants AAWE – Ithaca 2018

No information on prices or expert ratings 2. Experiment and Data 4 White Wines / 4 Red Wines of similar quality (according to expert ratings) No information on prices or expert ratings Country of origin of each Wine was repeatedly indicated and visible 2 questionnaires (1 for each research question): For research question 1: Comparison (Rank 1-4) of 4 white wines from South Africa, Germany, France and Spain 4 red wines from South Africa, Germany, France and Argentina Matching Music of respective regions was played during tasting. AAWE – Ithaca 2018

3. Methodological approach Correlation: Highest rating for regional wine and the respective matching regional music. Linear Regression: Dependent variable: Highest rank for a regional Wine Independent variable: Respective Music Descriptive Statistics Gender as additional independent variables. (Age - not shown here) Comparison of results with and without matching music. Not included here: Ordered Probit (so far only significant results for SA) Hier mit Trend AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Only related to research question 1: 4. Results Only related to research question 1: White wines – all regions: AAWE – Ithaca 2018

White Wine South Africa: 4. Results White Wine South Africa: Women and men: +/- react equally positive AAWE – Ithaca 2018

White Wine Germany: 4. Results Men react stronger on music (positive) AAWE – Ithaca 2018

White Wine France: 4. Results Some women react negatively on french music AAWE – Ithaca 2018

White Wine Spain: 4. Results Women react stronger on music (positive) AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Only related to research question 1: 4. Results Only related to research question 1: Red wines – all regions: AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Red Wine South Africa: 4. Results Women and men: +/- and react both negatively AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Red Wine Germany: 4. Results Men react stronger on music AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Red Wine France: 4. Results Men react stronger on music (negatively) AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Red Wine Argentina: 4. Results Women react positively, men more negatively AAWE – Ithaca 2018

For white wines, matching music seems to have a positive impact. 5. Conclusion For white wines, matching music seems to have a positive impact. For red wines, matching music seems to have a more negative impact, but not for Germany, as the impact is again positive. Men react always positive on German Music. Women react always positive on Latin Music. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Research design should be repeated in a more professional setting AAWE – Ithaca 2018

Thank you for listening!!! B. Niklas AAWE – Ithaca 2018