Technology Opens the World of Perception: What Happens When the Senses Digitize?

Text | Brain polar body

In Buddhist theory, there are six roots of man: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. These six roots are also the channels for us Red Dust people to perceive the whole world.

The tongue is the key to sustaining our physical existence, and the comfort that diet brings us is a reward for all of us after hard work.

But reality seems to tell us that the balance between delicious food and a healthy body is too difficult to control, and the result of enjoying good food is always to give up a part of the healthy choice.

So in the field of diet, can technology play a role so that we can combine food and health? Recently, a Japanese study has solved this problem that has plagued us.

Salt control chopsticks

Homei Miyashita, a professor from Meiji University in Japan, has developed a type of chopsticks that generate electricity, and by using this chopstick device during meals, you can taste salty without adding additional salt.

We may have learned through television and the Internet that Japan's diet is mainly light, but in fact, according to the "National Health nutrition survey report (2020)" released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the daily salt intake of Japanese adults is twice that recommended by the World Health Organization, and the World Health Organization recommends a maximum daily intake of 5 grams of table salt per person. If you want to change the intake of salt in your diet, you need to change your living habits, which also means that salt control is likely to become a slogan. This is also an important reason why Japanese scientists are committed to using technology to change taste perception.

The study was the result of a joint effort by Professor Yoshiaki Miyashita and beverage manufacturer Kirin Holdings Co. The principle is to stimulate the taste system by using a very weak electric current, changing the human taste perception of food without affecting the normal function of the human body.

The experiment selected 36 men and women aged 40-65 and asked subjects to use electronic chopsticks to taste samples that mimic ordinary foods (containing 0.80% salt) and simulated low-salt foods (containing 0.56% salt), as well as sodium-reducing miso soup. When electrical stimulation is applied, subjects have the same intensity of saltiness perception as samples that mimic low-sodium foods as samples that mimic ordinary foods. In experiments with sodium-reducing miso soup, subjects reported that after using electrical stimulation, the richness and overall taste of miso soup were improved.

This suggests that subjects used electronic chopsticks to taste foods with a 30% reduction in salt content, and their perception of saltiness was comparable to that of ordinary foods. That is to say, when eating foods with a 30% reduction in salt content, chopsticks equipped with this technique can increase the perception of salty taste by a factor of 1.5.

Many people will be more concerned about whether this kind of chopsticks with electric current has a health impact on the human body. Research technicians said that the weak current on the electronic chopsticks is controlled by a microcomputer and does not damage the taste function.

Table salt is one of the most important ingredients in the diet, and if you do not pay attention to excessive intake, it will easily cause diseases such as high blood pressure. Reducing the salt intake of the traditional diet through the technology of weak current allows us to adhere to the low-sodium and low-salt diet advocated by health without affecting normal eating habits. It is also a great blessing for the diet of Asians who like soups and waters.

Whether it is for healthy normal people or people with high blood pressure, electronic chopsticks are a good catering companion, allowing us to enjoy food normally while staying away from disease. Regarding when the chopsticks will be sold, Professor Yoshiaki Miyashita and Kirinsha said that they are improving the prototype of chopsticks and trying to commercialize them as soon as next year.

For the technology of taste perception, scientists' exploration has been on the road, and the research related to brain-computer interface will also be difficult to quantify the taste sense is gradually digitizing.

Recognize taste perception

In some test experiments that require taste, the traditional way has always been through questionnaires or sensory panel analysis, but this test method is the output after each of our individual brain nerve reprocessing, so the output of the results may not be so accurate for some more demanding experiments. Scientists are more interested in finding out the taste perception of our first reaction in these taste tests.

Brain-computer interface technology is trying to accurately identify various types of taste brain signals, and the principle of research is premised precisely because taste perception will be reflected in our brains in the form of neural signals.

When our tongue feels a taste stimulus, taste signals are transmitted through the thalamus to the taste cortex in the isula, and at the same time, the brain's reward system receives signals from the frontal cortex to want to eat. These signal-transmitting processes communicate with other neurons in the form of specific electrical impulses, and the signals produced by this process can be detected in the form of cerebrovascular blood flow, blood oxygen, and EEG.

The rapid development of biocomputing technology has made it possible for neural activity detection technology to collect precise spatio-temporal information about the active areas of the brain. Techniques such as electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and resting state imaging (fMRI) can all detect neural activity in the brain. The brain's area of responsibility for specific food stimuli (sour, sweet, bitter, salty, fresh) is stable and unchanged, so the use of brain-computer interface systems can decode taste information from neural signals.

By placing various electrodes in specific positions on the subject's head, ears, etc., the researchers collected various signals in different frequency bands in real time, and used machine learning and other techniques to identify the signal characteristics under these different taste stimuli.

During the identification process, the signal intensity obtained by most EEG studies exhibits a decreasing pattern from salty to sweet (salty > acid> bitter > sweet). Therefore, these intensity differences can be used to study specific taste discernments.

The study found that changes in brain signals can be used to predict consumer tastes and choice preferences, and researchers believe that the emotional component in food preferences also affects the taste experience, and the EEG signal induced by the best food for taste experience means a high level of happiness.

We can find that in different scientific studies, the sense of taste has become closer to us than before, whether it is using microcurrent technology to deceive the brain for health, or using brain-computer interfaces to identify different taste electrical signals one by one, and the sense of taste has changed from a vague experience to a clear message. In-depth research into this sensory tool will also guide our application in areas such as diet, medicine, and manufacturing.

When the senses begin to digitize

When we taste food, the perception of taste will cause a series of physiological changes in the body, these changes can be recognized by EEG signals, our facial expressions, heart rate may also change, through the classification of these recognition results can obtain potential responses, can be used as a tool to understand people's acceptance of new food tastes. Research and development, innovation and sales promotion of new foods can all play a beneficial role.

For some special groups, such as infants and aphasia people, through the taste recognition of brain-computer interfaces, specific foods suitable for these groups can also be tested to improve the quality of life of such people.

Of course, the digitalization of taste can also be applied in the field of medical health. Some patients who have lost their sense of taste will become nervous, painful and annoyed because of the change in taste, resulting in a decrease in appetite, and may even have anorexia nervosa, which seriously affects the quality of life. Chemotherapy patients with COVID-19 sequelae and cancer will face these painful moments. However, the loss of taste can be accurately stimulated by technical means to obtain the taste of food through technical means, reduce the psychological pressure and health burden of patients, and the application of taste stimulation therapy in the clinic will also expand in the future.

In the field of digital entertainment, the digitization of the senses can also enrich the experience of the virtual world. The digital application of taste is also very promising in the field of metaversics. Previously, researchers at the National University of Singapore developed a sensor device that can control the sense of taste, and by configuring different stimuli: current, frequency and temperature size, it can simulate the taste sensation of sour, salty, bitter, spicy, and even can simulate the taste of mint with thermal stimulation.

If these stimuli are combined, they can deceive the sense of taste and make the brain think that it is experiencing a communion with food. In the digital world of the metaverse, the sensory experience will also become more and more abundant, and a simple taste sensor can allow us to taste a variety of delicacies from different cultures and regions in the virtual world.

Taste is one of the most indispensable sensations in our senses, among the five basic tastes, sweet and salty make people feel that food contains nutrients, while sodium in salt taste can cause desire and appetite, sour and bitter taste makes people feel that food contains acidity and toxicity, thus causing a contemptuous, disgusting taste response. It is these rich tastes that make us feel the beauty of food and nutrition, the gifts that nature has given us.

However, some unfortunate people will lose their sense of taste for various reasons, and we have also seen some patients who have temporarily lost their sense of taste due to the new crown epidemic on social media sharing, and the taste of failure makes them miserable and depressed. All the food had lost its taste, and it even tasted strangely foul, which made them even want to commit suicide, and there was no joy in life at all. For this kind of individual sensory feeling, there is no solution that can be solved before. But now all kinds of in-depth research on taste allow technology to go deep and amplify individual sensory feelings and solve the troubles of some suffering people.

Our senses have always been dominated by various organs such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind, etc., and the leap of technology allows the feelings of eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body to be intervened, cured, and enriched, and the various experiences of the digital world and the physical world are intertwined and overlapped. Perhaps in the future, although the virtual world does not have a sense of reality, the experience from the sensory level is enriched and enriched, and the true and false are full of fun. The philosophical field may also be more exciting because of these sensory changes, and the propositions and discussions about the real and the unreal will be more exciting. That day may also be a historical moment when the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds are blurred.