Get yourself Hypnotised by Restaurant Music while Fooding

Music Psychology has always always been an interesting topic to discuss about. As a music enthusiast  I am always fascinated by how the different sounds can influence one's thoughts. Let's learn more about it and harness The Power of sonar today lol.

Blossom Gets Hypnotized

Over the years various studies have been made with regard to restaurants dining environment. Namely the design (this include colour, space..), the lighting, the smell, the sound, needless to say the taste of food..
You are right, all that I've mentioned earlier deals with our five senses.



Since I am blogging mostly about food and music, I will cover on the sound part. There will be a lot to talk about if we were to touch on all the five senses.

Let me start off with a research paper done by University of Leicester. I specifically want to highlight them is because the study they did is purely on the effect of musical styles while others may have include other environmental factors. Also in their papers they have cited quite a few interesting findings that was done previously by others.

Note: In this post I will not go in-depth with the methods and whatnot, understand that it can be very dry for some of you. Look at their original journal if you need to know how they did the sampling.

Ok.. So here is my brief summary of what they found out after they did their "little experiment"

• Musical Styles/ Genre has indeed affects consumer spending behaviour. 
• Classical subjected subjects are willing to spend more compared to the subjects conditioned with pop music..
• Restaurant customers are more willing to pay for a restaurant with background music than to one without a background music.

Some plausible explanations of this phenomenon by the researchers.

1.  The Style of music was in synergy with the posh surroundings thus promoting the consumers to spend.
   However this cannot be use to explain a study done back in 1998 which was conducted in a student cafeteria.
2. The subjects by nature preferred classical music. If they like it they'll spend more.
   No data of customers' musical preferences was found in research done by others.
3. Classical Music by itself promotes atas (Warning: Singlish detected) atmosphere which concludes why people are willing to spend more.
   A study in 1993 has shown similar result. The experiment took place in a wine cellar, the researchers found out that when classical music is played consumers are more willing to spend their money on higher priced wine.  

Interesting, dont you think? Of course restaurants are not the only place that use music and sound to attract customers.. take a look around.. and may you discover the dark and ugly secret of sound.

Ahh Yeah.. An excerpt from Kuitan..Ahh Yeah..

Spring from "The Four Seasons" (Vivaldi) remixed by Yasuharu Konishi

Remember to pay attention to your dining environment next time when you eat.