Project R-5518

The role of crossmodal correspondences in a multisensory setting on the evaluation of products and Retail environments. (Research)

My project is concerned with studying the effects of crossmodal correspondences on product level and on retail environment level. A crossmodal correspondence refers to the tendency of a sensory perception to be matched with an expectation for another sense. For example, crossmodal correspondence research shows that when you smell a vanilla scent, there is an automatic activation of another sense. In particular, the concept of yellow for the visual sense. Thus, there is a crossmodal correspondence between the olfactory sense (vanilla scent) and the visual sense (yellow). During my project, I want to investigate whether crossmodal correspondences between on the one hand seeing something (visual sense) and on the other hand smelling something (olfactory sense) or hearing something (auditory sense) can affect preference and evaluation of products and retail designs. For example, in line with the former example of vanilla scent and the colour yellow, one might expect that there is a preference for a yellow retail design when there is an ambient scent of vanilla or in other words when the crossmodal correspondence is met. The results of my project will help product designers, Retail designers and marketing professionals to shape their product and retail design in such a way that expectations triggered by crossmodal correspondences are optimized.

01 October 2014 - 27 November 2016