Music and multisensory perception: why they matter for your business

Synesthesia and crossmodal correspondences: two different phenomena

Some spaces are remembered as a single impression. Not because of an individual song or a particular dish, but as a whole: the light seemed warmer, the aroma drifted naturally, and conversation found just the right rhythm. Within that unified perception, music does more than serve as background. It acts as a force that organizes the experience.

Strictly speaking, synesthesia involves additional, involuntary, consistent experiences, such as perceiving colors when hearing music. Simner and colleagues (2006) estimated a prevalence of 4.4% for the different forms of synesthesia identified in a university sample. That figure does not describe musical synesthesia alone or a universal proportion of the population. For those who design experiences, a different phenomenon also matters:

People without synesthesia can also make associations between sound, color, texture, or taste. These crossmodal correspondences are not the same as involuntarily seeing colors when hearing music. In curation, they invite us to consider music in relation to what customers see, touch, smell, and taste.

Key definition: Crossmodal correspondences are associations between stimuli from different sensory modalities. Palmer and colleagues (2013) observed music-color associations mediated by shared emotions. The experiment concerned color choices and associations, not physical or visual changes to a space’s walls.

Multisensory science: what the research says

Studies show interactions between sound and other sensory modalities under specific experimental conditions. Their findings concern associations or perceptual judgments, not physical changes to the surroundings:

• Music and vision: In Palmer and colleagues’ study, fast excerpts in a major mode tended to be associated with lighter, yellower colors; slow excerpts in a minor mode with darker, bluer colors. Correlations between the emotional associations of music and color reached 0.99 in that experiment.
• Music and touch: Guest and colleagues (2002) altered the frequencies of sounds produced while touching surfaces or rubbing the hands and observed changes in perceived roughness and wetness. The finding concerns that specific auditory feedback, not any background music.
• Music and smell: Seo and colleagues (2014) found that congruent sounds could increase the pleasantness of certain odors, but the effect did not occur with all of them. This is not the same as physically intensifying an aroma or making any space smell fresher through a soundtrack.
• Music and taste: In an experiment by Reinoso Carvalho and colleagues, participants tasted the same chocolate with two soundtracks. The “creamy” track produced higher ratings of creaminess and sweetness than the “rough” one, without changing the chocolate or necessarily increasing enjoyment.

Key insight: A meta-analysis of 130 neuroimaging studies of music perception, production, and imagery found involvement of auditory and sensorimotor cortices in music perception and production. It does not, by itself, establish changes in how materials, aromas, or commercial spaces are perceived.

A unisensory approach versus multisensory design

Strategic conclusion: From a design perspective, it is useful to consider whether visual identity and music selection tell the same story. A bright visual identity and dense music may coexist or create tension, depending on the context. Music curation helps shape that relationship without applying a universal rule about what every customer will perceive.

How to integrate music into your multisensory strategy

The following proposals are principles for contextual design. They do not describe effects guaranteed by the preceding experiments; they need to fit the space, audience, and intended experience.

For restaurants

• Align music with the dish’s identity (e.g., “creamy” sounds for desserts, “vibrant” sounds for cocktails)
• Coordinate the soundtrack with open-kitchen aromas or ambient fragrances
• Use music to modulate the perception of time while guests linger after a meal

For hotels

• Relate the music’s character to the interior design and materials (wood, stone, fabric), without assuming it will change their perceived texture
• Coordinate the music selection and ambient scent as design decisions, without promising a sense of cleanliness produced by music
• Integrate music into the welcome ritual rather than simply using it as decoration

For retail

• Choose the music’s register and brightness to suit the product and brand identity, rather than following a rule that equates high pitches with premium products
• Define each area’s energy around its use and audience, without automatically associating low frequencies with discounts or sales volume
• Avoid friction between window-display lighting and musical energy

For events

• Coordinate the senses: relate music, lighting, and interior design without attributing a guaranteed effect on material hardness to the soundtrack
• Seek emotional convergence: what is lively and clear should move toward what is bright and light
• Remember: when all the senses converge coherently, the experience becomes memorable

Checklist: does your space convey multisensory coherence?

• ☐ Is there emotional coherence between the space’s lighting and the selected music?
• ☐ Does the music’s character fit the space’s interior design and materials?
• ☐ Has ambient aroma been considered as part of the musical equation?
• ☐ Does the music selection help the product (food or object) be perceived more favorably?
• ☐ Does the customer perceive a complete atmosphere rather than isolated stimuli?

Conclusion: from decoration to a structural tool

Multisensory research shows that listening can relate to color associations and judgments of touch, odors, or taste under specific conditions. Its contribution to design lies in considering music within the experience as a whole, rather than promising universal transformations.

Ultimately, that is the difference between playing music and designing an experience.
Playing music fills the silence.
Designing an experience means relating music to the other sensory decisions to create an atmosphere with identity.

When all the senses converge coherently, diners or customers do not perceive separate parts. They perceive a single experience. And that is something no algorithm can achieve without human intention.