In this talk, I want to demonstrate just how profoundly the environment (be it in the restaurant, in the store, at an experiential event, or in an exhibition space) affects our perception, our judgments, and our behavior. While most people like to think that they wouldn’t be so easily influenced (or ‘fooled’), the evidence from a growing number of well-controlled experiments now tells a very different story.
I want to suggest that there is no neutral environment, after all, even ‘the white cube’ delivers a certain kind of atmospheric effect. I will take a look at some of the ways in which galleries and museums are taking these insights on board, as they try to become more ‘multisensory’, and to deliver more on the experiential level. In closing, I will raise a few concerns – about the ‘Disney-fication’ of ‘edutainment’ and the potential dangers and pitfalls that are associated with ‘sensory marketing’ from other areas.
Professor Charles Spence is a world-famous experimental psychologist with a specialization in neuroscience-inspired multisensory design. He has worked with many of the world’s largest companies across the globe since establishing the Crossmodal Research Laboratory (CRL) at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University in 1997. Prof. Spence has published over 700 articles and edited or authored, 10 academic volumes including, in 2014, the prize-winning “The perfect meal”. Much of Prof. Spence’s recent work has focused on the design of enhanced multisensory food and drink experiences with chefs, baristas, mixologists and the food and beverage industry.