The sounds you make while chewing have a significant effect on the amount of food you eat, a new study has found. The results suggest that people are likely to consume less if they can hear themselves eating.

Researchers at Brigham Young University and Colorado State University have found that your TV, radio, and computer are making you fat.

Not by bombarding you with food ads (though they totally are) but by blocking the sounds of your chewing. In a recent study, they found that the noise your food makes while you’re eating can have a significant effect on how much food you eat.

“Sound is typically labeled as the forgotten food sense,” adds Ryan Elder, assistant professor of marketing at BYU’s Marriott School of Management.

“But if people are more focused on the sound the food makes, it could reduce consumption.”

“For the most part, consumers and researchers have overlooked food sound as an important sensory cue in the eating experience,” said study coauthor Gina Mohr, an assistant professor of marketing at CSU.

The team carried out three separate experiments to quantify the effects of “food sound salience” on quantity of food consumed during a meal. In one experiment, participants were given snacks to eat while they wore headphones playing either loud or quiet noises. The ones loud enough to mask the sound of chewing made subjects eat more — 4 pretzels compared to 2.75 pretzels for the “quiet” group.

In another of their experiments they found that just having people hear chewing sounds through an advertisement can decrease the amount they eat.

Elder and Morh call this the “crunch effect.” The main takeaway of their work should be the idea of mindfulness, they said. Being more mindful of not just the taste and physical appearance of food, but also of the sound it makes can help consumers to eat less.

“When you mask the sound of consumption, like when you watch TV while eating, you take away one of those senses and it may cause you to eat more than you would normally,” Elder said.

最新研究表明，人们在咀嚼东西时发出的声音会显著影响食物摄入量。研究显示，如果人们能够听到自己咀嚼时的声音，其食量很可能会减少。

杨百翰大学和科罗拉多州立大学的研究人员发现，电视、收音机和电脑会使人增胖。并不是因为这些设备会带来铺天盖地的食品广告（尽管确实如此），而是设备播放的声音会掩盖咀嚼声。近日，研究人员发现，吃东西时发出的咀嚼声对进食量有明显影响。

杨百翰大学麦里特商学院市场学助理教授瑞安·埃尔德补充说道：“通常我们认为，声音是被遗忘的食感。但如果人们更注意聆听进食的声音，进食量便会减少。”

该研究的另一位作者、科罗拉多州立大学市场学助理教授吉娜·莫尔说：“咀嚼的声音是进食过程中的重要感官暗示，但进食者和研究者大多会忽略这一点。”

研究团队进行了三项独立实验，以量化“进食声音特性”对于食物摄入量的影响。在一项实验中，研究人员将实验对象分为两组，让其在进食时带上耳机，耳机里分别播放着大小不同音量的声音。耳机音量盖过了咀嚼声的实验组成员进食更多 — 吃了4个椒盐卷饼，而耳机音量小的受试者只吃了2.75个。

在另一项实验中，研究人员发现，仅是听着广告中播放的咀嚼声，便能使人减少进食。

埃尔德和莫尔称此现象为“咀嚼的声音效应”。他们表示，此项研究表明，进食时应更为专注。不仅要关注食物的味道和卖

相，还要注重进食时产生的咀嚼声，因为这个声音会让人减少摄食量。

“当进食的声音被掩盖时，比如边看电视边吃饭，人们失去了声音这种感官刺激，因此摄食会超过其正常食量。”埃尔德说道。

    Words to Learn 相关词汇

   【提示】tíshì cue a reminder or prompting

    【显著性】xiǎnzhùxìng salience being remarkable