[Study on the relation for physical properties of masticatory jelly and masticatory muscle activity]

To measure the masticatory force used for everyday foods it is desirable to base the measurements on one mouthful of food. However, one mouthful of food changes in size and hardness. The purpose of this study is to establish a formula for estimating a correlation between the amount and force of mastication, active potentials and their integrated values, and the concerned material's size and hardness no matter they are same or unified. It is possible to measure the amount of mastication for normal foods without recording electromyographically. The effective method for recording the hardness of the jelly is the application of needle plunger. The thickness divided by the hardness and multiplying the value with the volume of the material, an estimated formula is thereby established to correlate with the integrated values of mastication.