Enhancing food taste experience with 360° immersive virtual reality (IVR)

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is an immersion technology that has evolved in the study of human-food interaction. Researchers found VR technology can alter people’s perception of taste by what they experienced in their surroundings. Therefore, the paper presents a preliminary investigation on taste experiences through 360° immersive virtual reality (IVR) video. The objective is to identify the potential elements that could possibly influence one’s taste experience through visual and environmental stimuli from Malaysian case study. A focus group consists of 21 multi-racial undergraduate students volunteered in this study. An explanatory sequential design method was used to analyze the food taste experience and its perception. Whereas the immersion was measured using Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Presence questionnaires. The results showed positive correlation in all 12 Presence elements (presence, engagement, immersion, flow, usability, emotion, judgment, experience consequences, technology adoption, environment, auditory and experience consistency). While the PANAS results indicated high positive effect on four elements (interested, excited, enthusiastic, and inspired). In addition, respondent’s perceptions were also analyzed against aforementioned results to add semantic understanding on food experiences through 360° IVR. The paper concludes by discussing future work and its relation to human-food interaction interests.