Abstract: Numerous studies have shown that the surrounding environment can influence people’s dietary decisions. On one hand, unisensory environmental cues, such as visual, auditory, and olfactory cues alone, have been shown to have different effects on individuals’ dietary decision-making. These cues primarily function by influencing people's perception of food, mental state, and/or the schema congruency between the cues and the foods. On the other hand, recent studies have also demonstrated that multisensory environmental cues can influence dietary decisions. A number of factors, such as individual traits and motivations, choice paradigms and scenarios, and sociocultural contexts may all play moderating roles in the effects of multisensory environmental cues on dietary decision-making. Future research can utilize virtual reality, machine learning, and other technologies to further investigate the underlying mechanisms of such influences, which has direct implications in developing effective health intervention strategies.

Key words: multisensory processing, food choice, food environment, food consumption, health intervention