Could this explain the prevalence of louder music in restaurants? Objectively I dislike loud music in such environments, but maybe the fact it hides such chewing noises makes it subtly attractive and I end up being drawn to such places for subconscious reasons, thus unwittingly incentivizing the presence of said loud music.
I ask Alexa to play Spanish guitar music at our family dinner table in an effort to attenuate both the kids "smacking" and my partners reactions to the "smacking". In my testing, it's resulted in less net "smacking" occurrences. So you could be on to something.
Or maybe I am just overthinking it.