7 Multimodal interactions

A sensory modality is the sensation that is perceived after stimulation of one of the type of receptors: chemoreceptor, thermoreceptor or pressure receptor. The different sensory modalities are then combined and integrated in the sensory nervous system, which results in a conscious or unconscious detection of the stimulus. Multiple sensory modalities can interact and influence each other and therefore influence sensory perception, a phenomenon that is also called a multimodal sensation. Examples of multimodal sensations are color and sweetness, through expectation (red strawberries automatically taste more sweet than pale ones, because you expect them to be sweeter), or color and expected flavor (red is expected to be strawberry, and yellow is expected to be lemon in lemonades for example).

Examples of multimodal interactions in food and expectations are illustrated in these short videos. These illustrate the importance of how all our senses contribute to our expectation of taste, and how expectations can influence perceived taste.