Abstract
Eating is one of the most multisensory experiences in everyday life. All of our five senses (i.e. taste, smell, vision, hearing and touch) are involved, even if we are not aware of it. However, while multisensory integration has been well studied in psychology, there is not a single platform for testing systematically the effects of different stimuli. This lack of platform results in unresolved design challenges for the design of taste-based immersive experiences. Here, we present LeviSense: the first system designed for multisensory integration in gustatory experiences based on levitated food. Our system enables the systematic exploration of different sensory effects on eating experiences. It also opens up new opportunities for other professionals (e.g., molecular gastronomy chefs) looking for innovative taste-delivery platforms. We describe the design process behind LeviSense and conduct two experiments to test a subset of the crossmodal combinations (i.e., taste and vision, taste and smell). Our results show how different lighting and smell conditions affect the perceived taste intensity, pleasantness, and satisfaction. We discuss how LeviSense creates a new technical, creative, and expressive possibilities in a series of emerging design spaces within Human-Food Interaction.
Highlights
Eating is one of the most multisensory experiences in everyday life
Smell conditions: We found significant differences in perceived taste intensity when the levitating droplets were being eaten with different scents (F(2,25.88) = 75.84, p < 0.001)
We discuss the effects of multisensory acoustic levitation on sweet, which we found in our two experiments and discuss future work directions
Summary
Eating is one of the most multisensory experiences in everyday life. All of our five senses (i.e. taste, smell, vision, hearing and touch) are involved, even if we are not aware of it. “Even before start eating a dish, several senses come into play: the smell of the dish and the look of it.1 ” - said Gaggan Anand, a molecular gastronomy chef owning a two Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in Bankok (Thailand) His view on multisensory eating experience is supported by research in Gastrophysics, which has demonstrated that the sensory impression of a dish during the process of eating relies on the https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-46840914/food-porn-star-indian-chef-gives-fine-dining-a-twist. Preprint submitted to IJHCS integration of cues from all of the human senses (Spence, 2015b), forming the “flavour” of the consumed food This multisensory aspect of eating leads to an emerging and promising research field in crossmodal correspondences, which investigates the augmentation and modulation of flavour perception through the change of not just the taste but other sensory modalities such as smell, sound, vision, or touch. Oberfeld et al (2009) found a strong relationship between the ambient lighting and people’s perception of a glass of wine, showing that it tasted
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