Dando used a $20 Samsung Gear headset and a Samsung Galaxy phone to study how visual perception can influence eating and drinking behavior. It turns out just changing the color of a beverage can alter the way a user experiences it. Robin Dando, an associate professor of food science at Cornell University, worked on a research experiment with low priced VR equipment that was presented to a food technologist conference last year. As COVID-19 creates a global "social distancing' phenomenon, including in developed countries with large elderly populations, VR could ultimately help address daily isolation caused by pandemics and specifically with activities like dining.īut the wider use of VR technology will require it to be available at a reasonable price.
This is an idea given immediate relevance in light of the coronavirus, which has caused social isolation on a scale never before seen in the U.S. "That's not really about entertaining or playfulness, but a real societal problem," the Oxford researcher said. In some countries, like Sweden, as much as half of the population live alone, and eating alone has been known to have a negative impact on health and well-being. However, Spence said this technology could also create major societal benefits in an era where more and more people are living alone. Virtual reality has the potential to bring significant entertainment value to the restaurant industry.
"TV dinners of the 1950s had nothing to do with what was on TV now we can offer people tools with which to augment their own experience." "To make people buy more, ultimately need to make a better experience," Spence said. Spence stated "The best ideas will come out of niche undertakings, working with a local gastropub or a branded sensory app on a mobile device," He also believes big growth will come when brands of ice cream, tea, whiskey, coffee or beer realize they can't compete just on taste, but also need to compete on experience. Luxury entertainment brands won't be the only ones creating exciting food and beverage experiences. "Chefs aren't trained as storytellers so this is where it plays more to the strength of a Disney," Spence said. The opportunity to turn a meal into an elaborate story is not something chefs alone can make successful. where moviegoers are brought certain foods to eat throughout the film that are tailored to the screen story. The multisensory experience can turn dining into a storytelling experience, Spence said, noting there are already theaters in the U.K. That may include projection of images, playing of sounds and the releasing of scents. His Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford has been working with a large, high-end hotel group on different ways to bring technology to dining tables in their resorts. For example, one dish appeared as a red sphere on a plate, and this cued the narrator to say, "I think it tastes like the whistle that the wind makes through a door lock on a cold autumn afternoon."Ĭharles Spence, an experiment psychologist at the University of Oxford who focuses on the human mind and multisensory food experiences, said VR is the latest way to test how human experience can be manipulated. This was all set to music and narration, which described dishes like a "mousse of roasted hopes." Before each course a table would appear with an object, representing food the diners were about to eat.
There were pink pineapples and blue cherries falling from the sky, meat dancing through the air and colorful environments that seemed to light up with each dish.
After a glass of champagne and a brief lesson on how to eat from the "food vessel" - throw the food back like a shot without spilling it all over the place - the diners were seated and strapped into a Facebook Oculus headset.įloating objects and oversized foods began to appear. Over the course of an hour, seven small courses were served in what the organizers describe as a "virtual and augmented reality art and dining experience" - at a price of $125.