Virtual Flavor: High-Fidelity Simulation of Real Flavor Experiences

Food and drink are key parts of our lives. While virtual reality has the potential to provide a high-fidelity simulation of real experiences in virtual worlds, the incorporation of flavor appreciation within these virtual experiences has largely been ignored. This article introduces a virtual flavor device to simulate real flavor experiences. The goal is to provide virtual flavor experiences, using food-safe chemicals for the three components of a flavor (taste, aroma, mouthfeel), which are perceived as "indistinguishable" from the equivalent real experience. Furthermore, because we are delivering a simulation, the same device can be used to take a user on a "flavor discovery journey" from a start flavor to a new, preferred flavor by adding or removing any amount of the components. In the first experiment, participants (N = 28) were exposed to real and virtual samples of orange juice, and the health product, rooibos tea, and asked to rate their similarity. The second experiment investigated how participants (N = 6) could move within "flavor space" from one flavor to another. The results show that it is possible to simulate, with a high degree of precision, a real flavor experience, and precisely controlled "flavor discovery journeys" can be undertaken using virtual flavors.