How Your Brain Creates Flavor | Prof. Charles Spence

Join Smell Expert Sofia Ehrich as she interviews Professor Charles Spence of Oxford University. In this interview, they discuss how the senses work together to enhance our experiences and the different research labs he runs. 

Professor Charles Spence is a world-famous experimental psychologist with a
specialization in neuroscience-inspired multisensory design. He has worked
with many of the world’s largest companies across the globe since establishing
the Crossmodal Research Laboratory (CRL) at the Department of Experimental
Psychology, Oxford University in 1997. Prof. Spence has published over 1,250
academic articles and edited or authored, 16 books including, in 2014, the Prose
prize-winning “The perfect meal”, and the international bestseller
“Gastrophysics: The new science of eating” (2017; Penguin Viking) – winner of
the 2019 Le Grand Prix de la Culture Gastronomique from Académie
Internationale de la Gastronomie. “Sensehacking” was published in 2021, and
“Digital Dining”, with Prof. Carlos Velasco, in 2025.
Much of Prof. Spence’s work focuses on the design of enhanced multisensory
food and drink experiences, through collaborations with chefs, baristas,
mixologists, chocolatiers, perfumiers, and the food and beverage, and flavour
and fragrance industries. Prof. Spence has worked extensively in the world of
multisensory experiential wine and coffee and has also worked extensively on
the question of how technology will transform our dining/drinking experiences
in the future.