Computational Commensality: From Theories to Computational Models for Social Food Preparation and Consumption in HCI.

Radoslaw Niewiadomski,Gualtiero Volpe,Maurizio Mancini,Gijs Huisman,Eleonora Ceccaldi

doi:10.3389/frobt.2019.00119

Abstract

Food and eating are inherently social activities taking place, for example, around the dining table at home, in restaurants, or in public spaces. Enjoying eating with others, often referred to as “commensality,” positively affects mealtime in terms of, among other factors, food intake, food choice, and food satisfaction. In this paper we discuss the concept of “Computational Commensality,” that is, technology which computationally addresses various social aspects of food and eating. In the past few years, Human-Computer Interaction started to address how interactive technologies can improve mealtimes. However, the main focus has been made so far on improving the individual's experience, rather than considering the inherently social nature of food consumption. In this survey, we first present research from the field of social psychology on the social relevance of Food- and Eating-related Activities (F&EA). Then, we review existing computational models and technologies that can contribute, in the near future, to achieving Computational Commensality. We also discuss the related research challenges and indicate future applications of such new technology that can potentially improve F&EA from the commensality perspective.

Highlights

Food and drink consumption is a vital human activity aimed at providing the body with nutrients that are necessary for survival
We introduce the concept of Computational Commensality (CC)2 to gather different attempts to computationally address various social aspects of food and eating
The main goal of this article is 2-fold: (1) we discuss psychological and sociological studies on the social aspects of food and eating activities, showing how they can be exploited to create CC; and (2) we present computational models, devices, and applications focusing on their social dimension, illustrating how they could be used in CC scenarios

Summary

Introduction

Food and drink consumption is a vital human activity aimed at providing the body with nutrients that are necessary for survival. What is more, eating and drinking are highly social activities that take place, for example, around the dining table at home, in restaurants, or in public spaces. People use food to regulate their own and others’ emotions, for example, by offering food to cheer others up or by eating some particular food they associate with positive memories. Humans learn that food can have a social and emotional meaning from a very young age, for example, by associating food offering with soothing (Hamburg et al, 2014). The variety of the topics related to Food- and Eating-related Activities (F&EA) has attracted researchers’ interest from several AI-related disciplines: from computer vision to multimodal interaction and from positive to social computing, as demonstrated by the recently born series of workshops titled “Multi-sensory Approaches to Human-Food Interaction” and the “ACM Future of Computing & Food Manifesto1”

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