E-Taste: Taste Sensations and Flavors Based on Tongue’s Electrical and Thermal Stimulation
Have you heard of an electronic tongue? It is a cutting-edge technology designed for assessing and analyzing food flavors. Medicine, gaming, and the human-computer interface are the main potential fields of application. A group of researchers from China is working on digital taste coding that can realize primary tastes (sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and mint), as well as mixed flavors. An interesting finding is that young participants could sense different flavors of sensations compared to aged participants, where heating and cooling the tongue generated different flavors. Also, this work shows that the taste lasts longer by stimulating the tongue for a longer period. The future goal is combining the e-taste with other stimuli, such as various types of visual, auditory, touch, and olfactory stimuli. The system is planned to be used in virtual reality games shortly.
