Smell, Taste, and Temperature Interfaces

Abstract

Everyday life hinges on smell, taste, and temperature-based experiences, from eating to detecting potential hazards (e.g., smell of rotten food, microbial threats, and non-microbial threats such as from hazardous gases) to responding to thermal behavioral changes. These experiences are formative as visceral, vital signals of information, and contribute directly to our safety, well-being, and enjoyment.Despite this, contemporary technology mostly stimulates vision, audition, and -more recently -touch, unfortunately leaving out the senses of smell taste and temperature. In the last decade, smell, taste, and temperature interfaces have gained a renewed attention in the field of Human Computer Interaction, fueled by the growth of virtual reality and wearable devices. As these modalities are further explored, it is imperative to discuss underlying cultural contexts of these experiences, how researchers can robustly stimulate and sense these modalities, and in what contexts such multisensory technologies are meaningful. This workshop addresses these topics and seeks to provoke critical discussions around chemo-and thermo-sensory HCI.CCS CONCEPTS • Hardware ~ Emerging technologies ~ Emerging interfaces • Human-centered computing ~ Human computer interaction (HCI)

Customer Engagement in Multi-Sensory Virtual Reality Advertising: The Effect of Sound and Scent Congruence

“…Particularly when using congruent scents in the VR experience. Advances are made in computer sciences, in developing olfaction-enhanced multimedia applications, that combine computer generated smell with other media to enrich the users’ experience ( Ghinea and Ademoye, 2011 ; Spence et al, 2017 ; Brooks et al, 2021 ). Such developments are also relevant to allow for sensory stimulation embedded in VR (e.g., Nambu et al, 2010 ; Brooks et al, 2020 ).…”

A Comprehensive Study of Emotional Responses in AI-Enhanced Interactive Installation Art

“…Advances in immersive environments such as virtual reality (VR) and wearable devices have developed kinship interfaces involving scent, temperature, and smell to reshape multi-sensory experiences. Odor stimuli can influence the perception of body lightness or heaviness [44], while temperature perception can promote social proximity concepts and influence human behavior [45]. Likewise, the sense of taste plays a crucial role in our understanding of the consumption process and reflects emotional states.…”

Third Wave or Winter? The Past and Future of Smell in HCI

“…In the past decades, there has been a monumental and multi-disciplinary effort from all corners of Human-Computer Interaction to bring more human senses into interactive systems [5]. This trend is most pronounced in the recent wave of virtual reality systems, the first to finally hit the mainstream, that aim to take advantage of as many senses as possible.…”

“…In more than half a century of HCI research and decades of olfactory research in HCI, there have been only a few workshops [5,21], and there have been no panels that have taken a wide and radical look at the field.…”

“…Brewster et al experimented with designing smell-based interactions for photobooks [3], amongst others. Despite these exciting developments, scent interfaces went back to sleep in the mid-2000s, though seeing a steady -albeit small -rise in HCI publications until the next wave [5].…”