Jutras Benoît, Lüönd Antonia, Honegger Flurin, Stieger Christof, Hummel Thomas, Welge-Lüssen Antje
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Sainte-Justine Hospital Pediatric Research Centre, University of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2019 Mar;276(3):889-895. doi: 10.1007/s00405-019-05296-w. Epub 2019 Feb 18.
The present study aimed to explore if food perception can be influenced by sound mastication level when the external ear canal was occluded.
Fifty-nine adults (38 women) with normal hearing, smell, and taste participated in the study. They tasted five crispy and five soft food items over two sessions: one with and one without an earplug inserted in the external ear canal. Participants were asked to rate freshness and taste of the food as well as their willingness to eat more of it and how much they usually like this kind of food. The sound pressure level related to the food mastication was recorded with a probe microphone placed in the external ear canal.
Compared to the open ear canal condition, levels of the mastication sounds were higher when the participants had their ears occluded, as well as for crispy than for soft food. Regarding food freshness, food appreciation, and willingness to eat more of the same food, there was no significant difference concerning food type, ear condition, and sex. For soft foods, men rated their usual liking of this food higher when they were wearing ear plugs compared to the opened condition.
Plugging the ear canals led to increased mastication sound levels. Participants did not seem to consider these additional acoustic cues when they rated food freshness, food appreciation, and willingness of eating the specific food. Only men seemed to take these cues into account when they rated their habit consumption of soft food.
本研究旨在探讨当外耳道被堵塞时，食物感知是否会受到咀嚼声音大小的影响。
59名听力、嗅觉和味觉正常的成年人（38名女性）参与了该研究。他们在两个阶段品尝了五种脆的和五种软的食物：一个阶段是外耳道插入耳塞，另一个阶段不插入耳塞。参与者被要求对食物的新鲜度、味道以及他们想要多吃的意愿和他们通常对这类食物的喜爱程度进行评分。用置于外耳道的探针式麦克风记录与食物咀嚼相关的声压级。
与外耳道开放的情况相比，参与者耳朵堵塞时咀嚼声音的水平更高，而且脆的食物比软的食物声音更大。在食物新鲜度、对食物喜好程度以及多吃相同食物的意愿方面，食物类型、耳朵状况和性别之间没有显著差异。对于软质食物，男性在戴耳塞时比外耳道开放时对这类食物的日常喜爱程度评分更高。
堵塞外耳道会导致咀嚼声音水平增加。参与者在对食物新鲜度、对食物喜好程度以及食用特定食物的意愿进行评分时，似乎没有考虑这些额外的声学线索。只有男性在对他们对软质食物的习惯性摄入量进行评分时似乎考虑了这些线索。
