Smell-e Technology: Bridging the gap between virtual and real-life food responses using an immersive multisensory VR food environment

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technologies such as virtual supermarkets arean emerging medium to model individuals’ eating behaviour. However, existing VR environments elicit weaker responses to food (i.e., craving and salivation) than in real-life, limiting their validity as research tools. We developed an immersive multisensory VR food environment – with both visual and olfactory (smell) cues – and investigated whether it could bridge this gap in food responses, and whether effects may be mediated by an enhanced sense of presence. In a within-subjects lab-based experiment, participants (N = 70) were exposed to food and non-food cues in either a unisensory “vision only” VR condition, a multisensory “vision + olfaction” VR condition, or a real-life setting with a matched physical set-up. Food-specific craving and salivation were measured in all six conditions. Results showed that food-induced craving was weaker in all virtual conditions versus real-life. Salivary responses to food were also lower in unisensory VR exposure versus real-life. Compared to unisensory VR exposure, multisensory VR exposure led to a directional improvement in craving, higher salivary food responses after adjusting for hunger, and enhanced perceptions of presence and mental imagery. While we could not conclude equivalence between multisensory VR and real-life settings, the latter did not differ on salivary responses either. In conclusion, an immersive multisensory VR food environment with olfactory cues can credibly model craving responses, albeit to a weaker degree than in real-life. The added value of this technology may lie in enhancing conceptual mediators and approximating real-life salivation to food.