Abstract
Five men, aged 21-25, and five women, aged 63-68, were each observed twice making clear egg soup. Their moods and attitudes towards the second trial compared with the first were measured by VAS. Their cooking behaviors were recorded and calculated by transition probability. The cognitive levels of each subject toward planning and modifying the cooking activity were evaluated before and after each cooking trial by using the NIRS topography system.
The VAS evaluation demonstrated that all the subjects felt that the 2nd cooking trial was more comfortable and that they were able to do it better than the 1st one. The behavior profiles of the male and female groups and their brain activity levels were significantly different between the 1st and 2nd cooking trials between which several modifications were made.
We found in this study, that the modification stage was important because it was conjugated with the feedback from experience. The memories from tasting and understanding the cooking phenomena were keys to improving the performance.
