"sound" news and stories

If you opt for a meal out at a restaurant, chances are, you'll have to deal with noise. Whether it's whimpering babies, clattering dishes, or raucous bachelor parties, it's gonna be noisy, and it will probably increase as the evening continues.

Last week, Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema published an article on this very controversial topic (NPR then interviewed him about the article, which you can listen to here).

Sietsema claims the main reasons that restaurants seem to have gotten noisier in the past few years has to do with both new technology and building design. In addition to diners chatting and typing away on cell phones and Blackberries, restaurant design trends are leaning toward hardwood floors and tall ceilings, with wooden and glass accents.

A Swiss lab has created a system of sensors and microphones to help dieters keep track of what they eat. A report from The Wearable Computing Laboratory describes how an in-ear microphone (right) was used, with very high accuracy, to identify various foods based on what they sounded like as they were eaten. Other parts of the system include a collar to detect swallowing and hand sensors to detect "food intake related motions." The lab hopes that all of this automation will make it easier for people to keep track of what they eat, as opposed to having to manually take notes about everything they consume in a day.

[Via pasta and vinegar]

Some scientists are trying to determine the role that sound plays in our perception of food, after the discovery that eating crunchy foods produces small pulses of ultrasound. Though doubtless everyone has heard the loud crunch of tortilla chips ringing in their ears, is the sound the deciding factor in your level of satisfaction with the chip? The argument about the tree in the forest could certainly be applied here. It is difficult to select a very crunchy food that does not produce a sound when chewed, or in which the taste could be perceived as an element separate from the act of eating it. Consider that there are many items that found along with food and are not eaten, though they would certainly produce a crunch if chewed, like the bones in meat. The sound does not enhance the flavor or the likelihood that the bones will be eaten. It is possible that they might taste worse if not for their crunch? Perhaps sound can be described as a property of crunchy foods, not as a separate element of the sense of taste.

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