The crunch sound of food makes your brain think it’s more satisfying, so louder crunching makes you want to eat more.
Scientific Claim
Auditory feedback during mastication modulates perceived food satiety and influences subsequent food intake via dopaminergic reward pathways.
Original Statement
“When the volume was low, the subjects always perceived that the Pringles were stale and they didn't want to eat as much. But when the volume was loud, they felt like it was more satiating in a lot of ways, but they wanted to eat more.”
Context Details
Domain
neurology
Population
human
Subject
auditory feedback during mastication
Action
modulates
Target
perceived satiety and food intake
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (2)
Food Intake Recruits Orosensory and Post-ingestive Dopaminergic Circuits to Affect Eating Desire in Humans.
When you chew food, your brain releases dopamine—the 'reward' chemical—that makes you feel good and influences how full you feel. This study shows that these brain reactions help decide how much you eat, supporting the idea that chewing sounds and taste affect your hunger through your brain's reward system.
This study showed that changing how your mouth feels when you chew can make food seem chewier — which means what you hear and feel while eating can change how you experience food, supporting the idea that chewing sounds might affect how full you feel.
Contradicting (2)
The study looks at how tasty food and stress change brain chemicals related to pleasure and eating, but it doesn’t study whether the sounds you hear while chewing affect how full you feel or how much you eat later.
This study found that stimulating a specific brain area with a drug makes hungry rats eat more, but it didn’t involve sounds, chewing, or how food feels in the mouth — so it doesn’t prove that chewing sounds affect how full you feel.