Abstract:  Dietary behaviors consist of a series of psychological and behavior processes, such as sensing flavors, evaluating food’s and drink’s qualities or hedonic valuation, forming preferences for foods and drinks, as well as the explicit consuming actions and patterns. Dietary behaviors are influenced by sound, which, specifically, affects the sensitivity of the gustatory system and individuals’ food preferences. Sounds contain inter-oceptive cues and exter-oceptive cues that directly affect dietary behaviors. Inter-oceptive cues refer to sounds created when one interacts with foods, such as chewing sound, swallowing sound and food preparation sound etc.. Exter-oceptive cues refer to environmental or background sounds, such as music played in a restaurant. Studies have shown that the effects of sound on dietary behaviors are essentially cognitive, involving, for example attention, sensory integration (the match effect), and familiarity and expectation (the potential tone painting effect). The interaction between sound and dietary behaviors has also been studied by neuroscientists, who aim to uncover the underlying mechanisms, and from the embodied cognitive perspective. Both are expected to provide insights about dietary behaviors.

Key words:  noise, interactive sound, background music, dietary behavior, across-modal integration