Influencing Flavour Perception of Chocolate Using Virtual Reality
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2019-06-24
Language
en
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Abstract
When we eat food, not just the actual taste in
uences how we perceive the taste of
the food. All senses contribute to this perceived taste, called the
avour. In this
thesis, the in
uence of vision will be looked at more closely. Many experiments have
shown that the appearance of food in
uences the
avour; everything from the colour
and shape of the food to the colour of the plate has an in
uence. There are two
aspects to
avour: its identity (is this orange
avoured or is this pear
avoured?)
and its intensity (how strong is this
avour?). Both can be in
uenced by the colour of
the food. So far, experiments that have looked into this have used non-solid foods or
drinks, as it is easier to manipulate these types of foods. In this experiment, virtual
reality is used to manipulate the colour of a non-solid food: chocolate. Participants
ate chocolate in real life and in a virtual environment. In one of the trials with
virtual reality, the colour of the chocolate was changed: the participants ate one
type of chocolate (dark or milk) but they saw the other type of chocolate. The
in
uence of the appearance on both
avour identity and intensity was investigated.
Some participants thought they were eating the type of chocolate that they saw
and thus, for them, the
avour identity was in
uenced by the appearance of the
food. For others, however, it was not. Some participants rated the intensity of a
few attributes (bitterness, sweetness, cacao, and creaminess) more like the chocolate
they saw than like the chocolate they were eating. For them, the
avour intensity
was in
uenced by the appearance of the food, but again, for others it was not.
Due to the small sample size and the big inter-subject di erences, the results were
inconclusive. Future research could try and nd more conclusive results and could
try to nd out why there were such big inter-subject di erences.
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Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen