A Model for Predicting the Physiological and Psychological State of Eating Based on Sensory Evaluation

Abstract

Food development, which focuses on people's physiological and psychological states, has attracted interest in recent years. Sensory evaluation using human senses has been used in food development. Several recent studies have evaluated the physiological and psychological states of eating. However, designing food products that induce feelings such as "concentration" and "arousal" in actual product design based on these studies alone is difficult because the causal relationship between food properties based on the sensory evaluation and physiological and psychological states of eating are not precise. The objective of this study was to reveal the relationship between food properties and physiological and psychological states during eating, with the aim of developing food products that induce arbitrary emotions. Models were constructed to estimate the subtyped physiological and psychological states during eating based on food properties obtained from sensory evaluations. The subtypes of physiological and psychological states during eating were identified using cluster analysis. The results showed that this method can clarify the relationship between food characteristics and physiological and psychological states during eating.