steve keller

The field of sonic branding has grown rapidly in recent years. While the majority of the developments in this area have thus far been led by practitioners, it is important to understand the cognitive principles underlying the appropriateness and efficacy of sonic branding in order to help develop design principles and practical guidelines that will help to move the field forward, particularly where a brand's distinctive sonic assets are concerned. This narrative historical review focuses on design considerations for one of the most common sonic assets, namely the sonic logo. Crucially, the question of how these sonic logos come to be associated with brands, and the extent to which their perceptual and affective qualities ought to match the attributes and personality of the brand, are experimentally tractable research questions. Principles drawn from the cognitive (neuro-)sciences, including the emerging field of research on crossmodal correspondences, are explored, providing actionable insights for those wanting to design successful sonic brands. The use of the semantic differential technique is also discussed as a means of systematically assessing the connotative alignment between a product, company, or brand and the distinctive sonic assets which together comprise the brand's sonic identity as a whole.

Mounting evidence demonstrates that people make surprisingly consistent associations between auditory attributes and a number of the commonly-agreed basic tastes. However, the sonic representation of (association with) saltiness has remained rather elusive. In the present study, a crowd-sourced online study ( participants) was conducted to determine the acoustical/musical attributes that best match saltiness, as well as participants’ confidence levels in their choices. Based on previous literature on crossmodal correspondences involving saltiness, thirteen attributes were selected to cover a variety of temporal, tactile, and emotional associations. The results revealed that saltiness was associated most strongly with a long decay time, high auditory roughness, and a regular rhythm. In terms of emotional associations, saltiness was matched with negative valence, high arousal, and minor mode. Moreover, significantly higher average confidence ratings were observed for those saltiness-m...

A large and growing body of empirical research now demonstrates the positive impact that music and other auditory stimuli (such as nature soundscapes) can have across the entire spectrum of the healthcare ecosystem. From the point of entry and onward to the operating room/theatre, in the peri-operational environment, patient wards, and medical waiting rooms, music affects all of those who hear it: Patients, their families, surgeons, caregivers, and hospital staff alike. In the age of the “experience economy,” where patients are considered both guests and consumers, private healthcare is increasingly starting to focus on customer satisfaction, and its impact on both financial performance and (not unrelated) health outcomes. In this review, we summarize the latest evidence concerning the impact of music, soundscapes, and noise, on medical outcomes and healthcare provision. We highlight the importance of the auditory (and, ultimately, the multisensory) environment, not only for health ...

Recent advances in crossmodal science have demonstrated that our perception of the world around us is an amalgam of sensory experiences. Nowhere is this more evident than in the emerging discipline of Gastrophysics: the new science of eating, which blends gastronomy (the “art of the table”) with psychophysics (the relationship between physical stimuli and mental phenomena). Examining restaurant atmospherics and acoustical design through the lens of crossmodalism and gastrophysics, it soon becomes clear that, when it comes to the pleasures of the table (i.e., of eating and drinking), what we put into our ears (i.e., what we hear) can be just as important as what we put into our mouths. This presentation highlights the latest research into the ways that sound and its application in restaurants can create expectations, shape perceptions, and influence the behavior of patrons. From sonic seasonings and sensplorations, to sound systems and acoustical treatments, we will explore how sonic environments will cont...

The term “sonic seasoning” refers to the deliberate pairing of sound/music with taste/flavour in order to enhance, or modify, the multisensory tasting experience. Although the recognition that people experience a multitude of crossmodal correspondences between stimuli in the auditory and chemical senses originally emerged from the psychophysics laboratory, the last decade has seen an explosion of interest in the use and application of sonic seasoning research findings, in a range of multisensory experiential events and online offerings. These marketing-led activations have included a variety of different approaches, from curating pre-composed music selections that have the appropriate sonic qualities (such as pitch or timbre), to the composition of bespoke music/soundscapes that match the specific taste/flavour of particular food or beverage products. Moreover, given that our experience of flavour often changes over time and frequently contains multiple distinct elements, there is a...