Non-contact temporalis muscle monitoring to detect eating in free-living using smart eyeglasses

Abstract

We investigate non-contact sensing of temporalis muscle contraction in smart eyeglasses frames to detect eating activity. Our approach is based on infra-red proximity sensors that were integrated into sleek eyeglasses frame temples. The proximity sensors capture distance variations between frame temple and skin at the frontal, hair-free section of the temporal head region. To analyse distance variations during chewing and other activities, we initially perform an in-lab study, where proximity signals and Electromyography (EMG) readings were simultaneously recorded while eating foods with varying texture and hardness. Subsequently, we performed a free-living study with 15 participants wearing integrated, fully functional 3Dprinted eyeglasses frames, including proximity sensors, processing, storage, and battery, for an average recording duration of 8.3hours per participant. We propose a new chewing sequence and eating event detection method to process proximity signals. Free-living retrieval performance ranged between the precision of 0.83 and 0.68, and recall of 0.93 and 0.90, for personalised and general detection models, respectively. We conclude that noncontact proximity-based estimation of chewing sequences and eating integrated into eyeglasses frames is a highly promising tool for automated dietary monitoring. While personalised models can improve performance, already general models can be practically useful to minimise manual food journalling.