A Study on Virtual Food Texture by Electrical Muscle Stimulation

Abstract

We propose a novel method to present virtual food texture by using electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) to the muscles of mastication. The system consists of “bite detection module”, “food texture database”, and “electric stimuli module”. A photoreflector is used to measure motion of the user's lower jaw for “bite detection”, electromyography sensors are used to measure food texture for “food texture database”, and a medical electrical stimulator is used for “electric stimuli”. We describe some preliminary studies to verify the feasibility of the proposed method. The results suggest that the photoreflector can detect bites, peak amplitude and pulse width of EMG are useful to represent food texture, and users feel hardness and elasticity of virtual food texture by presenting EMS to the masseter muscle.