Consumers are increasingly exposed to simultaneous auditory and visual stimulation in retail environments. Consistently, there is rising practitioner interest in how to interact the visual appearance of products and packaging with music sounds. This study addresses the intriguing question whether music systematically changes how people like what they see. We propose a cross-modal homeostasis effect that explains how music changes the inverted-U relationship between the perceived complexity of visuals and how much people like them. We show that the presence of music (irrespective of its complexity) shifts the optimal level of visual complexity towards liking of relatively simple visuals. Thus, while the mere presence of music decreases consumers' liking of complex visuals, it increases their liking of simpler visuals. Given the omnipresence of background music across business environments, the results have important implications, as music can have unexpected cross-modal consequences for the evaluation of visuals.

中文翻译：

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背景音乐对视觉图像评价的影响

消费者越来越多地接触零售环境中同时发生的听觉和视觉刺激。一直以来，从业者对如何将产品和包装的视觉外观与音乐声音进行交互的兴趣不断增加。这项研究解决了一个有趣的问题，音乐是否会系统地改变人们喜欢他们所看到的东西。我们提出了一种跨模态稳态效应，它解释了音乐如何改变视觉复杂性与人们喜欢它们的程度之间的倒 U 型关系。我们表明音乐的存在（无论其复杂性如何）将视觉复杂性的最佳水平转变为喜欢相对简单的视觉效果。因此，尽管音乐的存在会降低消费者对复杂视觉效果的喜好，但会增加他们对简单视觉效果的喜好。