So you think you’re a good cook, do ya?
Let me let you in on a little secret: If you’re basing that impression on what people told you about that new casserole recipe or side dish you brought to the potluck, there’s a good chance folks are just being polite.
Sure, not always. Many Spoon readers can no doubt make their way around a kitchen. But the reality is that not everything we cook is a winner, and often times, folks are trying not to hurt your feelings.
But what if we could actually read their brainwaves to determine how they feel about food? With a new system by a company called Thimus, we can now measure brain activity as people try out food to determine how they respond to it.
The new system, called the T-Box, monitors brain activity with a headset decked out with four frontal electrodes. It collects data from the brain’s electrical activity, which the company calls ‘implicit data,’ and then analyzes it alongside survey response data (which they call ‘explicit data’) to determine how a subject feels about a certain food product. They claim they understand how each sense contributes to the final customer perception of a specific food.
Thimus believes that measuring a person’s brainwave activity alongside their responses to survey responses will give a more accurate understanding of how a person really feels about food. The reason for this is it’s often hard for humans to put into words how they feel about a specific food and to articulate whether they like it or not.
Interestingly, the company also claims that its proprietary system can inform and interpret neurological data with a qualitative understanding of the participants’ cultural heritage.
“Our methodology connects the dots of sensory, neurophysiological, and cultural data. Because it is true that our brains all function alike, but they all live experiences in unique ways.”
The Thimus T-Box is being rolled out in partnership with flavor company Kalsec, which will offer it to commercial customers for testing and at a new facility called House of Humans at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, one of the world’s leading food and ag research universities.
So, for now, If you were hoping to strap one of these contraptions on your dinner guests to see how they really feel about your cooking, you’ll have to wait until Thimus releases a home version (or somehow coax your test subjects to take a trip to the Netherlands).
You can watch a video of Thimus using neurosensing technology (pre-T-Box) to gauge subjects’ reactions to alternative proteins below to get an idea of how this technology works.
