Being a pleasurable sensation, sweetness is recognized as the most preferred sensation among the five primary taste sensations. We present a novel method to virtually simulate the sensation of sweetness by applying thermal stimulation to the tip of the human tongue. To digitally simulate the sensation of sweetness, the system delivers rapid heating and cooling stimuli to the tongue via a 2×2 grid of Peltier elements. To achieve distinct, controlled, and synchronized temperature variations in the stimuli, a control module is used to regulate each of the Peltier elements. Results from our preliminary experiments suggest that the participants were able to perceive mild sweetness on the tip of their tongue while using the proposed system.

Keywords: Thermal taste; virtual sweet; sweet; virtual reality; multimodal interaction.

Press

• 2016 Futurism, “Now You Can Taste And Chew In Virtual Reality”

• 2016 New Scientist, “Face electrodes let you taste and chew in virtual reality”

• 2016 Discovery/Seeker/Science Channel, “Sweet! Virtual Food Has Real Taste Now”

• 2016 Food Navigator, “Food futures: TasteClouds, virtual food & EMS drive taste & texture development”

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its International Research Centres in Singapore Funding Initiative.