Watch Your Flavors: Augmenting People’s Flavor Perceptions and Associated Emotions based on Videos Watched while Eating

Abstract

People engage in different activities while eating alone, such as watching television or scrolling through social media on their phones. However, the impacts of these visual contents on human cognitive processes, particularly related to flavor perception and its attributes, are still not thoroughly explored. This paper presents a user study to evaluate the influence of six different types of video content (including nature, cooking, and a new food video genre known as mukbang) on people’s flavor perceptions in terms of taste sensations, liking, and emotions while eating plain white rice. Our findings revealed that the participants’ flavor perceptions are augmented based on different video content, indicating significant differences in their perceived taste sensations (e.g., increased perception of salty and spicy sensations). Furthermore, potential future implications are revealed to promote digital commensality and healthier eating habits.