Professor Charles Spence: "The Perfect Meal" | Talks at Google

Professor Charles Spence: "The Perfect Meal"
Recorded in London, September 2015
The Crossmodal Research Laboratory led by Professor Spence are at @xmodal on Twitter
Professor Charles Spence is a multi-award winning expert in the field of multisensory perception and neuroscience-inspired design. Established 17 years ago, he is the head and founder of the the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford University; it brings together leading psychologists, designers, sensory scientists, chefs, composers and marketers, who use the latest insights from neuroscience to design products and services that more effectively stimulate the senses of the consumer. Over the last 15 years Spence has published over 550 top-flight scientific articles, 8 books and his latest, The Perfect Meal: The multisensory science of food and dining, has just won the Popular Science Book Award in the U.S and is in reprint.
His lab’s pioneering work has had a real impact on Fortune 500 companies and Michelin starred chefs alike. It was through Heston Blumenthal’s collaborations with Spence (starting in 2002) that The Fat Duck’s infamous Sound of the Sea dish came about, and since then everyone from multinational companies to marketing agencies have been applying Spence’s sensory science to their products and experiences.
“Charles is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of multisensory perception, he has been one of my biggest inspirations”
Heston Blumenthal
Crossmodal research is the study of how our 5 senses work together and how our brains manage and process the information that forms the extraordinarily rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives. Scientists believe that a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces, and environments in the future. Spence calls for a radical new way of examining and understanding the senses that has major implications for the way in which we design everything from household products, packaging to mobile phones, and from the food we eat to the places in which we work and live. Projects include a new and enhanced inflight experience at British Airways, for Toyota warning signals that generate significantly faster responses from car drivers, at Häagen-Dazs an iPhone app (with competitors Ben & Jerry soon to copy) and his relationship with the wine industry has led to new multi-sensory marketing approaches that increase the value-perception of wine.
His work in food is gaining the most momentum due to collaborations with world leading chefs and global food companies. Further to his work with Heston Blumenthal, he has teamed up with Ferran Adria's research kitchen in Barcelona, Paul Bocuse cookery school in Lyon and with the next generation of modernist chefs and mixologists including Bartender of the Year Tony Conigliaro. For over 15 years, the world’s largest food and beverage companies/brands (including PepsiCo, Diageo, Twinings, Perrier Jouet, Unilever, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Mars) have implemented his findings to augment and enhance their consumer's experience. He now sits on the scientific advisory board of PepsiCo and much of his lab’s work is funded by global food companies. Spence consults extensively for product and packaging innovation consultancies such as IDEO, The Futures Group, Elopak, and marketing and advertising companies including Mother and i-am Associates.
Professor Spence is a passionate advocate in designing better-tasting, more stimulating, more memorable, and healthier food and drink experiences– an approach that comes under the banner of gastrophysics. Designers have always understood that good design involves all your sensors however Spence is unpicking the theory and getting behind what is really happening in the brain and why.
More about The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining: