External haptic stimulus biases sensory evaluation of odor impression

Delivering a certain impression, perceived by consumers as a synthesis of multimodal stimuli of food product or beverages, is considered as a key driver to promote stable decision for repeated purchases of the product. In this research, we examined effects of tactile stimuli on taste and odor stimuli in order to enhance/ weaken those impressions by external tactile stimulus. Results of two experiments are to be reported. In the first experiment, subjects were asked to evaluate impression of room odor, using a pencil with coarsely or slippery texture on its surface, which were considered to be irrelevant to the source of the room odor. Significant differences of evaluation scores between two conditions were observed with respect to several impressions. In the second experiment, thermal stimuli were presented on palm of subjects, together with sensory evaluation of odor impression. The result reveals that thermal stimulus biases sensory evaluation, as indicated in the first experiment. Those results indicate that perceived impression as a result of multisensory integration of taste and odor is biased by tactile stimuli, even if it is implicitly presented, and thus, tactile stimuli are capable for controlling perceived impression of taste and odor.