Relationships of Chewing Sounds to Judgments of Food Crispness

ABSTRACT The relationships between biting and chewing sounds and judgments of food crispness were examined in two studies. In the first, subjects used magnitude estimation to separately judge the loudness of chewing sounds and the crispness of a wide range of wet and dry crisp foods. Judgments of perceived crispness and loudness were highly correlated both when food samples were fractured by single bites and when further broken down by chewing. In the second study, biting and chewing sounds were blocked by a loud masking noise. Subjects had no difficulty determining crispness. Correlations between judgments obtained with and without an auditory block were high. It is proposed that vibrations produced by fracturing crisp foods may underlie the perception of crispness.