Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Multi-sensorial Approaches to Human-Food Interaction

Abstract

Eating and drinking are, perhaps, some of the most multisensory events of our everyday life. Take, for instance, flavor, which is one of the most important elements of such experiences. It is known that flavor is the product of the integration of, at least, gustatory and (retronasal) olfactory cues. Nevertheless, researchers have suggested that all our senses can influence the way in which we perceive flavor, not to mention our eating and drinking experiences. For instance, the color and shape of the food, the background sonic cues in our eating environments, and/or the sounds that derive from the food's mastication can all influence our perception and enjoyment of our eating and drinking experiences. In this workshop, we were particularly interested in new systems that were designed to enhance people's eating experiences in the context of HFI and which were based on the principles that govern the systematic connections that exist between the senses (e.g., spatiotemporal congruence, semantic congruence, and crossmodal correspondences. This included the experiencing food interactions digitally in remote locations, sensing flavor information from one place, transferring them over the internet digitally, and effectively regenerate at the destination. Further, we were interested in digital interfaces that would bring advantages such as precious controlling, cheaper maintenance, avoid refilling, and avoid calories. Therefore, in this workshop we called for studies on flavor sensing and actuation interfaces, new communication mediums, and persisting and retrieving technologies for HFI. Enhancing social interactions to augment the eating experience was another issue we intended addressed in this workshop. In addition, we wanted to discuss what is possible through multimodal technology and what is not possible without it during this workshop. Factors such as measurement techniques (e.g. mastication, eating speed, food tracking, psychophysiological responses to food consumption), potential for interactivity, and potential for customized experiences were taken into consideration. Finally, applications of multisensory approaches to HFI were also encouraged to submit since they can promote healthy eating habits, design of food-related products (e.g. packaging) and more compelling eating experiences.