Eat What You Want and Be Healthy!" Comfort Food Effects: Human-Food Interaction in View of Celebratory Technology

Abstract

Food craving is one of the fundamental desires of human nature. Many HCI researchers used to define this desire as a problem and has developed its corrective technology. However, positive aspects of food craving and food reward has rarely been in the scope of research. Few studies made its efforts to evaluate how food positively interacts with mental aspects of humans but have shown inconsistent results because of user subjectivity and environmental variations. Therefore, we have evaluated the human-food interactions with an EEG as objective indicator to track the mental activity. We found that when participants have a high craving for the certain food, which makes them feel comfort (hereafter comfort food), their working memory performance and related theta signal increase and stress related high beta signal decrease. The methodology adopted in this study will contribute to the progress in food-related celebratory technologies in HCI research field.