Summary: Scientists have developed e-Taste, a new technology that digitally replicates taste in virtual environments. Using chemical sensors and wireless dispensers, the system remotely captures and sends taste data, allowing users to experience sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and Umami flavors.
In the test, participants distinguished the intensities of different tastes with 70% accuracy, and remote tasting started successfully over long distances. Beyond gaming and immersive experiences, this breakthrough can improve accessibility for individuals with sensory impairments and provide a better understanding of how the brain tastes.
Important facts
Digital taste transmission: Wirelessly replicates e-Taste capture and VR taste sensations. Human trials showed that participants could distinguish taste intensity with a 70% accuracy.
Source: Ohio State University
New technology aims to redefine virtual reality experiences by expanding to incorporate new sensory connections: taste.
An interface called “E-Taste” uses a combination of sensors and wireless chemical dispensers to promote remote recognition of taste, or what scientists call pregnancy.
These sensors are tuned to recognize molecules such as glucose and glutamic acid. This is a chemical that represents five basic flavors: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and floral. Once captured via an electrical signal, the data is passed wirelessly to the remote device for replication.
Field tests conducted by researchers at Ohio State University confirmed the device’s ability to digitally simulate the intensities of different flavors, while providing diversity and safety to users.
“The chemical aspects of the current VR and AR domain are relatively underestimated, especially when talking about smell and flavoring,” said Jinghua Li, co-author of the study and assistant professor of materials science and engineering in Ohio.
“That’s a gap that needs to be filled, and we developed it with this next-generation system.”
Inspired by LI’s previous biosensor work, the development system utilizes an actuator with two parts: an interface to the mouth and a small electromagnetic pump.
This pump connects to a liquid channel of chemicals that vibrate as charges pass through and pushes the solution into the subject’s mouth through a special gel layer.
Depending on the length of time the solution interacts with this gel layer, the strength and strength of a particular taste can be easily adjusted, Li said.
“Based on digital instruction, one or more different flavors can be released at the same time so that different sensations can be formed,” she said.
The study was published today in the journal Science Advances.
Taste is a subjective sensation that can change from one moment to another. But this complicated feeling is that it is the product of two body chemical sensing systems to ensure that what you eat is safe and nutritious.
“Taste and smell are heavily related to human emotions and memories,” Lee said. “Therefore, our sensors need to learn to capture, control and store all that information.”
Despite the challenges associated with replicating similar taste sensations in the majority of people, the researchers found that in human trials participants could distinguish between different sour intensities of liquids produced by a system with an accuracy rate of approximately 70%.
Further tests assessing e-Taste’s ability to immerse players in virtual food experiences also analyze its long-distance capabilities and show that remote tasting can be started in Ohio from far from California.
Another experiment included subjects attempting to identify five recognized food options, including lemonade, cake, fried eggs, fish soup, and coffee.
These results open up opportunities to unlock new VR experiences, but the team’s findings are particularly important as they could provide scientists with a more intimate understanding of how the brain processes sensory signals from the mouth.
The technology-enhancing plan will revolve around further miniaturization of the system, improving system compatibility with various compounds in foods that produce taste sensations.
Apart from helping to build a better, dynamic gaming experience, the study notes that this work may help promote the accessibility and inclusiveness of virtual spaces for disabled individuals, like those with disabilities such as traumatic brain damage and long covid.
“This helps people connect to virtual spaces in ways they’ve never seen before,” Li said. “This concept is here and is a good first step towards becoming a small part of the metaverse.”
Other Ohio co-authors include Shulyn Chen, Yizhen Zia, Zi Liu, Chi Wang, Prasad Nityanandam and Chunyuyan.
Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the Ohio State Chronic Brain Injury Pilot Award Program, and the Emergency Materials Center. The Center for Exploring New and Complex Materials, the Institute of Materials, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Darian’s outstanding young talent in science and technology.
About this virtual reality and taste recognition research news.
Author: Tatyana Woodall
Source: Ohio State University
Contact: Tatyana Woodall – Ohio State University
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
Jinghua Li et al. Advances in science
Abstract
Sensor actuator coupled taste interfaces that chemically connect virtual and real environments for remote tasting
Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) have strengthened the bridge between the virtual world and the real world through the human machine interface.
Despite extensive research into biophysical signals, taste, the fundamental component of the five senses, has experienced limited advances.
This work reports a biointegrated taste interface “e-Taste” to address the underestimated chemical dimensions of current VR/AR technologies.
The system promotes remote recognition of taste and replication of taste through the combination of physically isolated sensors and actuators and wireless communication modules.
By using five basic taste chemicals, the systematic code design of key functional components provides reliable performance, such as adjustability, versatility, safety, and mechanical robustness.
Field tests involving human subjects focused on user recognition check for proficiency digitally simulating different flavors and combinations.
Overall, this study hosts ways users can transcend visual and auditory virtual engagement by exploring the chemical dimensions of AR/VR technology and enhancing digital experiences by integrating taste sensations into virtual environments.
