New Citations | Food for Thought

With a new year approaching, many people around the world will gather with friends and family to celebrate. What is one commonality across cultures to celebrate? Food! BIOPAC provides software and hardware that allows research teams to study physiological measures to see how people interact with food. Here are a few notable studies using BIOPAC equipment for ECG, EDA, and EMG signals.

Hungry for Virtual Reality?

Could VR be used as a new tool to study the effect of the eating environment on food intake and eating behavior? By measuring heart rate with an MP36R, these researchers were able to see how different virtual environments affected participants’ behavior while eating pizza. Read the full study: Virtual Reality as a Tool to Study the Influence of the Eating Environment on Eating Behavior: A Feasibility Study (James H. Oliver and James H. Hollis)

Better Company, Better Food?

How does the sociality of a meal influence our emotional experience of it? When we eat with people we’re familiar with, do we rate the food better than if we eat alone or with complete strangers? This study captured facial EMG data through a BIOPAC Data Acquisition System to see how people reacted when eating in both scenarios. Read the full study: The influence of social context on food-evoked emotion (Elizabeth Cassandra Nath)

Psycho About Food

Every single day we face a multitude of food options. This has made it easier for people to overeat from beloved restaurants, chains, or even home. By measuring electrodermal activity with a BIOPAC MP160 and EDA electrodes, researchers were able to assess the psychophysiological responses to food cues that influence food intake and food choices. Read the full study: Investigation of eye tracking, electrodermal activity and facial expressions as biometric signatures of food reward and intake in normal weight adults (Hanne Pedersen, Jonas Salling Quist, Marie Moller Jensen, Kim Katrine Bjerring Clemmensen, Dorte Vistisen, Marit Eika Jorgensen, Kristine Faerch, Graham Finlayson)

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