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Using crossmodal correspondences as a tool in wine communication

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Introduction This research investigates consumer acceptance of alternative methods for communicating information about wine, focusing on the alignment between sensory attributes and consumer expectations. Methods A survey was administered to wine enthusiasts to assess their attitudes toward crossmodal communication. Results The findings reveal significant associations between consumer behaviors and acceptance of alternative communication methods, highlighting the emerging field of crossmodal correspondences. Discussion These results suggest that leveraging crossmodal correspondences can enhance the match between a product’s sensory qualities and consumer expectations, potentially reducing wine wastage resulting from unmet consumer preferences. These findings have implications for improving communication strategies in the wine industry and enhancing consumer experiences.
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Frontiers in Psychology 01 frontiersin.org
Using crossmodal
correspondences as a tool in wine
communication
AndersCrichton-Fock
1
*, CharlesSpence
2 and NicklasPettersson
3
1 School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts & Meal Science, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden, 2 Crossmodal
Research Laboratory, Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United
Kingdom, 3 Örebro University School of Business, Örebro, Sweden
Introduction: This research investigates consumer acceptance of alternative
methods for communicating information about wine, focusing on the alignment
between sensory attributes and consumer expectations.
Methods: A survey was administered to wine enthusiasts to assess their attitudes
toward crossmodal communication.
Results: The findings reveal significant associations between consumer behaviors
and acceptance of alternative communication methods, highlighting the
emerging field of crossmodal correspondences.
Discussion: These results suggest that leveraging crossmodal correspondences
can enhance the match between a product’s sensory qualities and consumer
expectations, potentially reducing wine wastage resulting from unmet consumer
preferences. These findings have implications for improving communication
strategies in the wine industry and enhancing consumer experiences.
KEYWORDS
crossmodal correspondence, multisensory experience, crossmodal communication,
product matching, wine communication
1. Introduction
Multisensory research is important if one is to understand how to optimize communication,
since it involves much more than just spoken or written language. As humans, weuse multiple
senses such as sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, to gather information and communicate
with others. Research on the crossmodal correspondences can provide an ecient tool for
communication by leveraging the connections between the senses, not least when it comes to
wine (see Spence, 2023). is is accomplished by involving a combination of dierent senses to
increase the potential success of product communication, depending on the product, potential
consumer, and purpose. For example, this could include dierent kinds of visual cues, such as
shapes and colors (Spence, 2023), to support the communication of complex multisensory
products, which on a single-sense basis can behard to fully communicate/understand for the
regular consumer. It could also bethe use of mental pictures, metaphors and analogies relating
to common recognizable human characteristics (Herdenstam etal., 2009, 2018, 2020). In this
context it could beargued that consumers in general are well-experienced using crossmodal
descriptions and sensory metaphors in their daily speech. For example: warm welcoming and
bubbly personality (touch), bright idea and glowing review (vision), end on sour note and such a
sweet personality (taste), love stinks and sweet smell of success (odor), music to my ears and the
world is listening (sound).
OPEN ACCESS
EDITED BY
Varun Dutt,
Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India
REVIEWED BY
Carmen Adams,
University of Hasselt, Belgium
Bruno Mesz,
National University of Tres de Febrero,
Argentina
*CORRESPONDENCE
Anders Crichton-Fock
anders.crichton-fock@oru.se
RECEIVED 20 March 2023
ACCEPTED 06 July 2023
PUBLISHED 31 July 2023
CITATION
Crichton-Fock A, Spence C and
Pettersson N (2023) Using crossmodal
correspondences as a tool in wine
communication.
Front. Psychol. 14:1190364.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
COPYRIGHT
© 2023 Crichton-Fock, Spence and Pettersson.
This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY). The use, distribution or
reproduction in other forums is permitted,
provided the original author(s) and the
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No use, distribution or reproduction is
permitted which does not comply with these
terms.
TYPE Original Research
PUBLISHED 31 July 2023
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 02 frontiersin.org
In this context, a question arises as to whether this could bea tool not
only to help understand the correspondence between dierent senses, but
also as a tool to meet future challenges in regard to food communication
and ultimately food waste (Uiterkamp and Vlek, 2007; Rosen, 2009;
Adams, 2010; Hopton etal., 2010; Stock and Burton, 2011; De Soete, 2016;
Rinaldi, 2017; Dondi etal., 2020; Martini etal., 2021). As mentioned
already, there is a need to implement new strategies to decrease the
climate footprint, both in the wine industry as well as beyond (Christ and
Burritt, 2013; Galbreath etal., 2020). Strong communication and learning
from the sensory perspective of crossmodal correspondence can
potentially be used to enhance sensory training by creating more
immersive and interactive learning experiences as a tool to help
individuals better retain information about a product (Ahn, 2011; Ghosh
etal., 2016), especially one with a complex avor prole such as wine. is
is a critical subject when it comes to the communication of olfactory
experiences, both with regard to limitations in verbally and linguistically
grasping the message as well as in terms of understanding sensory
complex food products such as wine (Paradis and Eeg-Olofsson, 2013).
In the realm of sensory marketing, the utilization of
multisensory stimulation has traditionally served as a valuable tool
for understanding consumer responses to products in relation to
the fulllment of their expectations (Elder and Krishna, 2010;
Varela and Ares, 2012; Spence etal., 2013; Krishna and Schwarz,
2014; Croijmans and Wang, 2021; Spence, 2022a). is line of
research focuses, in part, on consumer acceptance while
acknowledging the ecacy of imagery and text in marketing, as
well as the interaction between visual and linguistic elements in
such contexts (Bolognesi and Strik Lievers, 2018). Nonetheless, it
is crucial to explore how various visual cues (e.g., Lick etal., 2017;
Baptista etal., 2022; Nguyen and Durner, 2023; Spence, 2023) and
haptic sensations (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2012; Wang and
Spence, 2018) may inuence consumer preferences and correlate
with taste and texture. Within this context, research has indicated
that imagery depicting wine plays a signicant role in the
recollection and communication of sensory experiences
(Herdenstam etal., 2009, 2018; Croijmans etal., 2020) and that
certain training and expertise can enhance imagery abilities among
wine-interested consumers (Croijmans etal., 2020; Herdenstam
etal., 2020). In a recent study, consumers with varying levels of
self-reported imagery vividness were examined (Croijmans and
Wang, 2021). e ndings suggested that the vividness of mental
imagery might bea crucial factor to consider, as multisensory wine
descriptions can help stimulate purchase intentions among
consumers with lower imagery vividness, particularly in terms of
their desire to drink the wine (Croijmans and Wang, 2021).
Conversely, consumers with higher vividness reported a greater
desire to drink the wine even in the absence of multisensory
descriptions in imagery (Wang etal., 2022).
Overall, the understanding of mental imagery vividness, is an
important factor to consider when it comes to nding better tools for
the communication of wine (Spence, 2017; Spence, 2022c). is
approach might beapplied for understanding how other complex food
products communicate, as they contain layers of volatile odors, avors,
and tactile sensations, and this tool might becritical in understanding
linguistic communication and dierent consumer group’s attraction
to a product (Paradis and Eeg-Olofsson, 2013). In this context,
investigating the multisensory environment and its impact on
consumer acceptance has also shown how important it is to consider
the sound and hearing aspects when tasting wine (Spence and Wang,
2015a,b,c).
Recent research studies have shied their focus towards
comprehending the comprehensive impact of multisensory
environments, surpassing earlier studies that examined sensory
experiences on an individual basis. ese studies aim to gain insights
into consumer experiences (Maziriri etal., 2021; Spence and Van
Doorn, 2022; Wörfel etal., 2022; Spence, 2022a). is emphasis is
particularly signicant in unraveling the reasons behind consumers’
product choices (Spence, 2020, 2022a,b).
In the past, a large body of wine research has demonstrated a wide
variety of inuences aecting the consumer’s esthetic and hedonic
relation to sensory experience (Spence etal., 2014). One possible
reason is that traditional and cultural aspects of the wine industry are
reected in idyllic images with beautiful landscapes, which has led to
a perception that wine is considered as an environmentally friendly
product (Ruggieri et al., 2009; Christ and Burritt, 2013). On the
contrary, the United Nations has made it clear that there is an
inevitable need to increase resources used in the food industry
through environmental, sustainable, and cost-eective solutions (Roy
etal., 2009; Ghosh etal., 2016; Merli etal., 2018). According to the
above-mentioned studies, it can beargued that nding alternative
ways to communicate about wine and other complex food products,
novel or otherwise, could behelpful to both the consumer experience
and the environment (Ahn, 2011; Ghosh etal., 2016). is is partially
due to the demonstrated limits of language in describing sensory
experiences that derive from the olfactory domain when experiencing
wine (Paradis and Eeg-Olofsson, 2013).
is questionnaire-based study aimed to explore the attitudes of wine
consumers towards crossmodal communication and assess the
eectiveness of crossmodal correspondence as a potential communication
tool for wine and other complex food products. e primary motivation
behind this study was to explore innovative approaches to enhance the
alignment between consumer expectations and sensory experiences,
particularly by identifying novel and eective tools to address challenges
associated with food production and waste.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Ethics statement
All of the participants were over 20 years of age, and informed
consent was obtained from all of those taking part in the study. All of
the data and analysis les were kept in accordance with legislated and
regulated data handling practices.
2.2. Participants
e participants consisted of 329 students from dierent
sections of the 7.5-credit, 15-week distance course ‘Beverage
knowledge’ oered through Örebro University (Sweden). e
students received training in which they learned a common
methodology to analyze wine. One important factor in the selection
of these group of participants was their common experience of
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 03 frontiersin.org
partly being exposed of eects of crossmodal correspondence
during their training sessions, learning the basics of wine tasting.
Both theoretically, by taking part of research during the course, and
also practically, through the tasting exercises, experiencing
crossmodal correspondences aects when moving from one sense
modality to another. ey were instructed rst to look at a wine’s
appearance qualities in order to make visual judgments concerning
its color, intensity, maturity, age, freshness, acidity, and
concentration. ey were then encouraged to validate these rst
impressions on the nose, and subsequently on the palate, observing
the eect of crossmodal correspondence and their notable impact
during the professional wine tasting procedures, assessing rst
visual impressions, then the bouquet with layers of aromas, and
lastly taste and oral-somatosensation while during this multisensory
experience also being intervened by the retronasal eect of the
odors in the palate. e majority of the participants were female
(59%) and lived in the city (76%). Almost all had previously studied
at university (94%), and most of them had received a bachelor’s
degree, or higher (74%). As a group, they considered that they had
better than average wine knowledge (76%). Most of the participants
consumed wine on a weekly basis (87%), which they typically
purchased at Systembolaget (Sweden’s nationally regulated liquor
monopoly; 81%) and then consumed at home (80%; see
Appendix A).
e participants shared the following traits:
i. ey had all tasted the same wines and other beverages and had
therefore shared a variety of sensory experiences within their
training program.
ii. ey had all learned a common approach and methodology
when it came to the sensory analysis of wine. It can therefore
bepresumed that, as a group, they had an awareness of the
importance of (all) the senses in the analysis process, including
vision, olfaction, taste, touch, and sound.
iii. ey had all experienced crossmodal correspondence during the
tasting methodology practice. In other words, they were aware
that the senses could not betotally isolated from one other during
the process of analyzing the wine and, subsequently,
communicating about the multisensory experience.
2.3. The questionnaire
e questionnaire used in this study comprised four sections. is
section focuses on the analysis of the rst section, which included
inquiries about demographics, as well as single-choice and multiple-
choice (check-all-that-apply; CATA) questions pertaining to purchase
and consumption behaviors, communication practices, and sensory
experiences related to wine. e remaining sections, which investigated
visual aspects, the use of specic symbols, and alternative
communication methods, were analyzed and presented separately based
on the results of the statistical analysis. e questionnaire was
distributed to participants upon completion of the course. In addition
to collecting demographic information, it encompassed single-choice
and multi-choice (CATA) questions concerning purchase behaviors,
consumption habits, communication preferences, and sensory
experiences (see Appendix B).
2.3.1. Examples of single-choice questions
1) Where do you primarily purchase wine? 2) Where do
youprimarily consume wine? 3) To what extent would youconsider
buying a wine based only on sensory information – i.e., if no other
conventional information were available?
2.3.2. Examples multi-choice questions (CATA)
1) When purchasing wine from your selected choice in the
question above, what factors inuence your choice? 2) When
consuming your wine at your selected choice in the question above,
which factors primarily inuence “your experience”? 3) If youcould
freely choose an alternative to regular communication on a wine label,
what would youprefer?
2.4. Data analysis
EyeQuestion version 5 (Logic 8, Elst, Netherlands), a soware
program for sensory and consumer testing, was used to collect the
participants’ responses. e soware package R (R Core Team, 2021)
was used to analyze the data.
3. Results
We analyze the inuential factors when purchasing and
consuming wine (in section 3.1) and reported preferences towards
alternative wine communication (in section 3.2) including their
associations to demographics and inuential factors (in section
3.2.1–7). e relations between preferences are then analyzed (in
section 3.3) and followed up by investigating the most frequent
preference combinations and their associations to demographics and
inuential factors (in section 3.4).
3.1. Reported factors influencing
purchasing and consumption of wine
e most inuential factors reported by the participants when
purchasing wine were (in descending order of importance): type of
grape (77%), prior experience of the wine (72%), country of origin
(72%), external recommendations (68%), style (65%), and price
(62%). At the same time, the sensory descriptors communicated on
the wine label or on the shelf were also reported to bean important
factor for just under half of the participants.
e dominant factors inuencing the choices reported by this
group of engaged wine consumers would appear to beof a more
general character. On the other hand, more specic aspects such as:
sensory indicators of the experience, name of the producer, alcohol or
vintage information, overall product communication in the store, shelf
information and producer information (on the bottle design) were
considered to beless important (see Table1).
e most inuential sensory factors reported by the group of wine
enthusiasts when consuming wine were as follows: taste (94%), tasting/
dinner setting (66%), and smell of the wine (65%). Far fewer of the
participants reported being inuenced by the other senses during their
consumption: vision (26%), touch (12%), sound (8%). Here, a
discrepancy was noted, with the reported factors inuencing purchasing
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 04 frontiersin.org
being dominated by more general information rather than sensory
indicators, and the sensory indicator of taste was reported as the single
most important factor when consuming the wine (see Table2).
3.2. Reported attitudes towards alternative
wine communication
When the participants were asked whether they might consider
buying wine based only on sensory information and no conventional
label information, most of them had positive reactions to buying a
bottle just so long as the sensory descriptors matched their own
personal preferences (91%). Another question asked if they would also
consider buying a wine with no specic origin, for example, a blend
of dierent wines from dierent origins. Here, the participants reacted
positively to the thought of buying a bottle if the descriptors happened
to be equivalent to their sensory prole (95%). In terms of
sustainability, 76% of them answered that they, to varying extents,
would consider climate change into when making a decision about
what wine to buy (see Appendix C).
In the questionnaire, the participants were introduced to
alternative ways of communicating about the sensory experiences of
wine and were asked to freely choose from examples of dierent
modalities (see Appendix B). Visual communication using shapes and
colors were the most frequently requested (54%), while avor (45%)
and odor/aroma (38%) were also highly ranked alternative means of
communication. e least popular alternatives were those
communicated auditorily, such as speech (9%), music (8%), and
sounds (6%), see Table3.
In sections 3.2.1–3.2.7 weexplore each of the alternative ways of
communicating in relation to reported demographics (see also
Appendix D) and purchase choice (Appendix E) and consumption
experience (Appendix F), using two-sided hypothesis tests of,
association (Kendall’s Tau rank correlation coecient, Fisher’s exact
test and Chi-square test), and of equal location among groups (Mann–
Whitney U test and for signicance to categories Kruskall-Wallis test,
Wilcoxon rank sum test and t-test), see Appendix D. When studying
the relation to purchase choice and consumption experience, as to rule
out the inuence of the reported locale, wealso use binary logistic
regression to regress the preferred alternative way of communication
on the locale and the inuential factor under study. Logged odds ratios
(logOR) are used to represent 2*2 categorical associations, as
exemplied at the start of section 3.2.1.
3.2.1. Shapes/colors (other visual symbols)
ere were 62 males and 115 females who preferred shapes/colors
as a means of communication, while 115 males and 80 females did
not. A positive (negative) logged odds ratio indicates larger (smaller)
odds amongst males who preferred shapes/colors as communication,
relative to the odds among females, while a value of zero indicates no
dierence in odds. Since the odds amongst females (115/80 = 1.44) is
higher than amongst males (62/70 = 0.89), the positive logged odds
ratio, logOR = log(1.44/0.89) = 0.48, indicates that females were more
likely than males to prefer shapes/colors as a means of communicating
about wine. Using Fisher’s exact test, under the null hypothesis that
gender and preference for shapes/colors are independent, the
probability of an outcome at least as extreme as the observed (i.e., the
p-value) is 0.042, which is less than 0.05. us, females (59%) are
signicantly more open to communications involving vision (using
TABLE1 Reported factors influencing wine purchasing behavior (CATA).
Influence factor nFrequency %
(n=  329)
e grape 253 76.90%
Previous experience (having tried the wine before) 237 72.04%
Country of origin 237 72.04%
External recommendations (professional, friends,
others)
224
68.09%
Style of wine 215 65.35%
Price 204 62.01%
Sensory indicators (concerning the taste, aroma
prole, and/or mouthfeel)
163
49.54%
e wine producer 112 34.04%
Climate impact (How eco-friendly is the wine) 98 29.79%
Vintage 65 19.76%
Illustrations on the label 61 18.54%
e front label 61 18.54%
Bottle design (bag in box/bottle) 55 16.72%
e back label 12 3.65%
Other 9 2.74%
TABLE2 Reported factors influencing experience of consuming wine
(CATA).
Influence factor nFrequency %
(n=  329)
Tas t e 309 93.92%
Dinner/tasting setting 216 65.65%
Smell/odor sensations of the wine 215 65.35%
“Meal” companions/other guests 164 49.85%
e visual impression (vision) 84 25.53%
Overall room environment 75 22.80%
Tactile (touch) sensations 40 12.16%
Hosts/Professionals/Sta 31 9.42%
Sound environment (sounds) 25 7.60%
Others 3 0.91%
TABLE3 Reported alternative communication to regular wine label
(CATA).
[Article section] Alternative
communication
nFrequency %
(n=  329)
[3.2.1] Shapes/Colors (other visual symbols) 178 54.10%
[3.2.2] Flavors (tastes) 148 44.98%
[3.2.3] Odors/aromas (smells) 125 37.99%
[3.2.4] Touch (tactile) 49 14.89%
[3.2.5] Speech (hearing) 30 9.12%
[3.2.6] Music (hearing) 26 7.90%
[3.2.7] Sounds (hearing) 20 6.08%
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 05 frontiersin.org
shapes/colors) to describe the multisensory experience of wine,
compared to males (41%), see Tables AD.1, AD.2.
Regarding reported inuencing purchasing factors (Table AE.1),
the odds of preferring visual communication were signicantly
smaller for respondents inuenced (relative to those not inuenced)
by vintage (logOR = 0.63), and signicantly larger for respondents
inuenced by the climate impact (0.66), the bottle design (0.76), the
illustrations on the label (1.15) or the front label (0.67). e sensory
indicators (0.48) and the price (0.50) were also signicantly larger, but
not aer controlling for the locale of purchase (Table AE.2).
Among the factors inuencing the experience (Table AF.1), the
odds of preferring visual communication were signicantly larger for
respondents inuenced by taste sensations (logOR = 1.34) or hosts/
professionals/sta (0.55), also aer controlling for the locale of
consumption (Table AF.2).
3.2.2. Flavors (tastes)
Neither any demographical factors (Appendix D) nor any factors
inuencing wine purchasing (Appendix E) were signicantly related
to preferring avors (tastes) as means of communication. e only
association found to bestatistically signicant (Table AF.1), which also
held aer controlling for the locale of consumption (Table AF.2), was
the smaller odds of preferring avors (logOR = 0.55) for respondents
whose experience was aected by the overall room environment.
3.2.3. Odors/aromas (smells)
e median income was signicantly lower amongst those
respondents who were open to (35,000 SEK) vs. those who were not
open to (40,000 SEK) communication through odor/aromas
(Table AD.4 and Figure AD.2).
Among the factors inuencing the purchase (Table AE.1), the
odds of preferring communication via odors/aromas were signicantly
larger for respondents inuenced by the country of origin
(logOR = 0.74), the type of grape (0.70), the style (0.54), the sensory
indicators (0.63) or the bottle design (0.72) respectively, also aer
controlling for the locale of purchase (Table AE.2).
Regarding inuence on consumption experience (Table AF.1),
only one association was found to bestatistically signicant, where the
odds of preferring odor/aromas was (intuitively) larger for those
whose experiencing was inuenced by smell/odor (logOR = 0.86), also
aer controlling for the locale of consumption (Table AF.2).
3.2.4. Touch (tactile)
Consumers open for communication involving touch were on
average signicantly younger (35.2 years) than those who were not
open (42.4 years) to this form of communication (Table AD.3 and
Figure AD.1). eir median income was also signicantly lower (34.3’
SEK) compared to those who were not open to communication
through touch (39’ SEK), see Table AD.4 and Figure AD.2. e
respondents open to vs. not open to communication through touch
diered signicantly in their distribution of wine consumption, and
those more open to this modality were less likely to consume wine
frequently (33% more than once weekly) compared to respondents
that were not open to this modality (55% more than once weekly).
Also, they were signicantly more likely to primarily consume wine
in restaurants (12%) and not with friends or family/in a wine tasting
group (8%) compared to others (4 and 15% respectively), see
Table AD.5.
Regarding statistically signicant associations between reported
factors inuencing purchase of wine (Table AE.1) and the preference
for tactile alternative communication the odds was (intuitively) larger
for respondents who preferred communication via touch for the
illustrations on the label (logOR = 1.61) but as well for the front label
(1.16), and the bottle design (0.84), also aer controlling for the locale
of purchase (Table AE.2).
e only association found to bestatistically signicant was the
(intuitively) larger logged odds (logOR = 0.91) of preferring touch for
consumers whose experience were inuenced by tactile sensations
(Table AF.1), which also held aer controlling for the locale of
consumption (Table AF.2).
3.2.5. Speech (hearing)
Neither any demographical factors (Appendix D) nor any factors
inuencing the consumption (Appendix F) were signicantly related
to preferring speech (hearing) as a means of communication. e only
association found to bestatistically signicant (Table AE.1) was the
larger logged odds of preferring speech as alternative communication
for respondents whose wine purchasing were inuenced by the
country of origin (logOR = 1.34), also aer controlling for the locale
of purchase (Table AE.2).
3.2.6. Music (hearing)
Respondents open to alternative communication via music were
on average signicantly younger (36.4 years) compared to others
(41.8), and lived in more densely populated areas (96% vs. 74% in
capital or city), see Table AD.3 and Figure AD.1.
For inuence on purchase and consumption of wine, only a single
factor each was signicantly associated to preferring music as
alternative communication, also aer controlling for the locale.
Regarding purchase, the odds of preferring music were higher for the
bottle design (logOR = 1.27), see Appendix E, and for consumption
the odds of preferring music were higher for the sound environment
(logOR = 1.75), see Appendix F.
3.2.7. Sounds (hearing)
Respondents open to alternative communication via sounds were
on average signicantly younger (34.8 years) compared to others
(41.7), and lived in more densely populated areas (95% vs. 74% in
capital or city), see Table AD.3 and Figure AD.1.
None of the factors inuencing consumption experience
(Appendix F) were signicantly associated with the preference for
sounds as alternative communication. Regarding inuence on
purchase of wine a single factor was statistically signicant
(Table AE.1) with a larger odds of preferring sounds in relation to
sensory indicators (logOR = 1.18), also aer controlling for the locale
of consumption (Table AE.2).
3.3. Associations between reported
alternatives to regular wine
communication
We study the pairwise associations between the seven preferences
for alternative wine communication using logOR and correlations,
and then look for higher dimensional structures. While most
consumers reported only one alternative (45.9%), very few reported
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 06 frontiersin.org
no alternative (6.1%), so almost half (49.0%) checked at least two of
these alternatives (see Table4).
When pairs of reported alternatives were considered, about half
of them had a signicant relationship (see Table5). Since all signicant
logORs/correlations were positive, except for shapes/colors, where
only touch was positive and the others signicantly negative, the
occurrence of a reported alternative generally had an increased
probability of also having other alternatives reported. Particularly, the
logOR/correlation between sounds and music were large (2.89/0.40),
although both alternatives were quite infrequent in total (6.1 and
7.0%). e logOR/correlation was also fairly high between Odors/
aromas and Flavor (1.32/0.31). e other logORs involving Speech,
Music, Sounds and Touch (except for Music and Touch) were about
as high (1.02–1.49) although the correlations were somewhat lower
(0.10–0.18). For preferred alternatives Shape/colors and Flavors, the
logOR was not as high (0.90) but the correlation was somewhat
higher (0.22).
Among the respondents there were 51 dierent combinations of
preferences for alternative wine communication, including the
combination with no preferences at all. Aer applying logistic
principal component analysis for dimensionality reduction on the
preferences, wekept the rst three extracted principal components
(PCs) since they accounted for as much as 79% of the total deviance
among the preferences (44, 19 and 16% respectively), involved all
preferences with (very) high loadings and resembled the correlational
structure well, see Table6. e rst PC had high loadings (absolute
value larger than 0.3) of Sounds, Music, Speech and Touch, the second
had a very high loading (absolute value larger than 0.6) of Shapes/
colors but also high of Odors/aromas and Flavors, while the third PC
had a very high loading of Shape/colors, but also high of Odors/
aromas and Touch.
Aer plotting the respondents scores on the three extracted PCs,
see Figure1, we identied three groups (plus two deviant single
combination groups) of observations which (by construction) diered
signicantly in terms of their preferences of alternative wine
communication, see Table6.
e number of preferences also diered signicantly between the
groups, the bottom group (in red, named G1) with fewest (0–3), the
middle group (green, G2) with slightly more (1–4) and the top group
(blue, G3) with most preferences (2–5), see Figure1. and Table7. e le
single combination group (black, G4) had 80 respondents preferring only
Shapes/colors, while the utmost right (black, G5) had four respondents
preferring all the seven ways of alternative wine communication.
Relatively many in group G1 preferred hearing and tactile, but
fewer in G2 and G3. While none in group G1 preferred smells and
taste, about half in G2 and everyone in G3 did. e groups also
diered signicantly in terms of age (G5 youngest, G3 and G4 oldest),
see Table7, and to the degree which they selected wine with regard to
sustainability (Table AG.1).
In studying the relation to purchase choice and consumption
experience weuse multinomial regression and regress the group (but
to enable reliable estimation weexclude group G5) on the locale (as to
rule it its eect) and the inuential factor under study, see Table AG.2.
In addition to previously found signicant factors (see sections 3.2.1–7)
inuencing purchase (country of origin, grape, illustrations on the
label, vintage), the wine producer was also found to besignicant.
Regarding consumption experience (Table AG.3) the situation was
similar (with smell/odor and tactile sensations, overall room
environment and hosts/stas from before) adding visual impression.
We summarize the description of the groups in Table8.
3.4. Most frequent combinations of
reported alternatives to regular
communication of wine
Given the frequencies in Table3 it is as expected that the most
frequent combinations (63.2%) of reported alternatives (see Table9)
only involved the univariately most frequent alternatives: shapes/
colors (54.1%), avors (38.0%) and odors/aromas (45.0%). Almost
half of those who reported any three alternatives (13.7%) specically
reported these three (6.4%). However, no one reported the specic
TABLE5 Pairwise logged odds ratios (upper right) and correlations (lower left) of reported alternatives to regular wine communication.
Shapes/
colors
Sounds Music Speech Touch Odors/
aromas
Flavors
Shapes/colors 0.26 0.35 0.78*1.11*** 0.66*** 0.90***
Sounds 0.03 2.89*** 1.33** 1.47*** 0.74 0.64
Music 0.05 0.40*** 1.49*** 0.83 0.70 0.39
Speech 0.11*0.14*0.18*** 1.02** 0.69 0.22
Tou c h 0.18** 0.18** 0.10 0.13*1.02*** 0.09
Odors/aromas 0.16** 0.09 0.10 0.10 0.18*** 1.32***
Flavors 0.22*** 0.08 0.05 0.03 0.02 0.31***
Log odds ratio with Fisher’s exact test (Haldane-Anscombe), and Pearson correlation coecient with t-test. Two-sided p-value: 0.05 > * > 0.01 > ** > 0.001 > ***.
TABLE4 Total number of reported alternatives (Shapes/Colors; Sounds; Music; Speech; Touch; Odors/aromas; Flavors) to regular wine communication
among respondents.
Number of reported
alternatives
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total
Number of respondents 20 151 90 45 13 6 0 4 329
Percentage of total respondents (%) 6.1 45.9 27.4 13.7 4.0 1.8 0 1.2 100
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 07 frontiersin.org
combination of shapes/colors and odors/aromas. e most common
combination was the group G4 (see section 3.3) with 80 respondents
only preferring shapes/colors as alternative communication.
It is hard to detect signicant dierences between the combinations
since they are relatively small (except for G4). Still, the age of
respondents was signicantly higher among the combination odors/
aromas and avors (49.7 years), relative to those only reporting the
alternative odors/aromas (37.9 years), but not among those only
preferring avors (45.4 years), see Figure AH.1. A few inuential factors
on the choice of purchase (illustrations on the label, sensory indicators),
see Table AH.1, and on the consumption experience (taste sensations),
see Table AH.2, diered signicantly between the combinations. Due
to scarcity of observations, wedid not control for the locale.
4. Discussion
e ndings of this study revealed that taste (94%), tasting/dinner
setting (66%), and the smell of the wine (65%) were the most inuential
self-reported sensory factors during wine consumption. In contrast, a
smaller percentage of participants reported being inuenced by other
senses, such as vision (26%), touch (12%), and sound (8%). ese results
suggest that there is relatively low awareness of crossmodal
correspondence and the eects of the multisensory environment among
this group of engaged wine consumers. is highlights the potential for
more serious attempts to implement the ndings of this research in the
food industry, considering the valuable role that alternative multisensory
communication tools have played in sensory marketing and increasing
sales (Elder and Krishna, 2010; Varela and Ares, 2012; Spence etal., 2013;
Krishna and Schwarz, 2014; Croijmans and Wang, 2021; Spence, 2022a).
Despite the extensive research demonstrating the inuence of
senses like vision and touch on crossmodal correspondence (Lick etal.,
2017; Baptista etal., 2022; Nguyen and Durner, 2023; Spence, 2023)
and the role of haptic sensations (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2012;
Wang and Spence, 2018), the participants in this study reported these
factors as being inuential for only a few of them. However, when
asked if they would consider purchasing wine based solely on sensory
information, the majority of participants reacted positively, particularly
if the sensory descriptors aligned with their personal preferences
(91%). Similarly, when asked about purchasing a wine with no specic
origin but blended from dierent wines, participants responded
positively (95%) if the descriptors matched their sensory prole.
Furthermore, when it came to the primary choice of alternative
communication for wine, visual cues were rated the highest (54%). is
supports the idea that this group of participants is open to buying wine
based solely on sensory information, without considering origin or
blending. By analyzing the respondents’ scores on the three extracted
principal components, three groups (along with two deviant single
combination groups) were identied. ese groups exhibited signicant
dierences in their preferences for alternative wine communication. is
result suggests the potential for a strategic communication approach that
employs dierent forms of communication tools to target dierent
consumer groups through alternative communication methods. It also
highlights the importance of utilizing such tools to support specic
consumer groups in need of special assistance (Spence, 2022c).
As mentioned earlier, one of the motivations behind this research
is to explore how novel sustainable products that are resource-ecient
and have a reduced carbon footprint can beeectively communicated
and validated for consumer acceptance (Lévy etal., 2006; Peschel
etal., 2019; Herdenstam etal., 2022). is research aims to enhance
researchers’ understanding of how consumers perceive a product in
relation to meeting their expectations, thereby contributing to the
communication and acceptance of such products.
5. Conclusion
ese results provide insights into the factors that inuence wine
purchasing and consumption, as well as the preferences and attitudes
towards alternative wine communication. ey highlight the
importance of sensory information, particularly taste, and the
potential for using visual and other alternative means to communicate
TABLE6 Loading matrix from logistic principal component analysis on preferences for alternative wine communication.
Principal
component
(% explained
deviance)
Shapes/colors Sounds Music Speech Touch Odors/
aromas
Flavors
First PC (44%) 0.090 0.496 0.488 0.468 0.464 0.242 0.119
Second PC (19%) 0.462 0.092 0.034 0.096 0.272 0.449 0.702
ird PC (16%) 0.655 0.106 0.180 0.265 0.373 0.537 0.173
Loadings with absolute value larger than 0.3 (0.6) are in bold (bold italic).
FIGURE1
Respondents scores (with groupings colored and single group
combinations in black) on three extracted PCs (from preferences of
alternative wine communication).
Crichton-Fock et al. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364
Frontiers in Psychology 08 frontiersin.org
TABLE7 General characteristics and preferences for wine communication by group (G1-G5).
General characteristics Preference for altern. wine communication (%)
Group Nr of
respondents***
Average nr of
alternatives for
communication**
Average
age
(years)*
Median
income
(1,000 SEK)
Shapes/
colors
(%)***
Sounds
(%)***
Music
(%)***
Speech
(%)***
Touch
(%)***
Odors/
aromas
(%)***
Flavors
(%)***
G1 57 1.04 37.6 37.4 33 9 14 21 26 0 0
G2 111 1.72 40.5 37.0 37 6 7 7 14 40 60
G3 77 2.83 43.5 38.0 44 5 8 8 18 100 100
G4 80 1 43.5 41.0 100 0 0 0 0 0 0
G5 4 7 33.0 24.5 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Test of equal size: Nr of respondents (Chi-square). Test of association: Preference for alternative (Chi-square). Test of equal location: Age (Anova F-test); Nr of alternatives and Income (Kruskal-Wallis). p-value: 0.05 > * > 0.01 > ** > 0.001 > ***.
TABLE8 Salient features among groups compared to the least salient (reference) group.
Group (size
in %)
Alt. wine
communication
Demographics and other characteristics Factors influencing purchase
choice
Factors influencing consumption
experience
G1 (17%) Hearing, tactile Younger, consume in bars/restaurants, willing to try blended wine Country of origin, illustrations on the label,
wine producer
Tactile sensations
G2 (34%) Consume with friends/family/wine tasting group, regard sustainability Grape Overall room environment, hosts/professionals/ sta
G3 (23%) Smell, taste Older, consume at home, consider buying with only sensory information Country of origin, wine producer, vintage Visual impression, smell/odor sensation
G4 (24%) Visual Older, consume with friends/family/wine tasting group, regard sustainability Hosts/professionals/sta
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Frontiers in Psychology 09 frontiersin.org
the sensory experience of wine. Understanding these preferences and
associations can assist in developing eective strategies for wine
marketing and communication, addressing better resource use.
Overall, these ndings suggest that wine consumers consider various
factors when purchasing and consuming wine, including sensory
indicators, personal preferences, and inuential factors. ere is
openness to alternative means of wine communication, particularly
visual communication using shapes and colors. e associations
between preferences and demographics/inuential factors highlight
the individual dierences in wine communication preferences. It’s
important to note that these conclusions are based on the information
provided in the given sections. Further analysis and research may
benecessary to validate and expand upon these ndings.
Data availability statement
e original contributions presented in the study are included in
the article/Supplementary materials, further inquiries can bedirected
to the corresponding author.
Ethics statement
Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on
human participants in accordance with the local legislation and
institutional requirements. Written informed consent was taken from
the participants.
Author contributions
AC-F contributed to conception and design of the study and
wrote the rst dra of the manuscript. CS wrote sections of the
manuscript and approved the submitted version. AC-F and CS
contributed to manuscript revision and read. NP performed the
statistical analysis and contributed to manuscript revision. All
authors contributed to the article and approved the
submitted version.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to especially acknowledge Markus
Ekman, School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts & Meal Science at
Örebro, for collecting data. This study is the second pilot within
the multidisciplinary research project Rewine The World, which
has a mission to rescue wine and other complex food products.
Conflict of interest
e authors declare that the research was conducted in the
absence of any commercial or nancial relationships that could
beconstrued as a potential conict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent those of their aliated
organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or
endorsed by the publisher.
Supplementary material
e Supplementary material for this article can befound online
at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1190364/
full#supplementary-material
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