Could your ears make a chip seem fresher?
One recording, two sound treatments. Listen if you like, then see what happened in the experiment.
No sound? The answer works without it.
Sound only plays when you tap Listen.
An illustrative sound comparison. Listening alone does not recreate the experiment.
Yes. Sound changed how fresh the chips seemed.
Your ears help decide how fresh a chip seems.
Researchers changed the biting sounds people heard through headphones. With louder or enhanced high-frequency feedback, the chips seemed crisper and fresher.
In informal questions after this small 2004 experiment, 15 of 20 participants thought the chips came from different packages. They came from the same package. This is not a population estimate or a test of actual freshness.
The crunch is part of the experience.
In our comparison, A softens high frequencies and B emphasizes them. Both use the same recording. Your reaction may differ.
The receipts
Zampini & Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies (2004) ↗
The experiment manipulated auditory feedback during biting. The 15-of-20 package response is reported in the discussion, p. 357, as informal post-experiment questioning. It is not a population estimate or a measure of food freshness. Oxford abstract ↗. Our two clips are filtered versions of a separate CC0 recording by Joseph Sardin ↗, not study recordings. The chip image is generated.