Exploring the Impact of Food Craving and Pleasure Technologies on Aesthetic Experience in Digital Media

Abstract

Humans are known to be good in creating pleasure technologies. In fact, some evolutionary psychologists believe that aesthetic experiences are biologically hardwired. This article reviews how the pleasure stimulus concept can be explored to enhance human experience in digital media. It is argued that the individual's consumption motivation is more than the by-products of the biological pleasure circuits. For instance, in daily life, one experiences various information processing, some of which does not emerge into one's explicit consciousness but relevantly contributes to one's experience. Although craving or desiring is mostly an explicit process, it can also manifest as an unconscious aspect of experience leading to an irrational or intrusive thoughts that can in turn alter or contribute to the aesthetic character of an experience. Using Quality of Experience assessment methodologies and extensive literature from a multidisciplinary standpoint, this article shows that intrusive mental concepts on food craving saliently affect the user's aesthetic experience and perception of quality in digital media.