EEG Correlates of Perceived Food Product Similarity In a Cross-modal Taste-visual Task

Food Quality and Preference. 2020. Vol. 85. P. 1–7.

Domracheva M., Kulikova S.

The most common tools to understand perception of food products are hall tests,
surveys and observations. However, these approaches require large samples to get reliable
results and they are rather costly and time-consuming. Furthermore, they are also highly
expert-dependent and rely on the assumption that study participants can express their
preferences consciously and explicitly. In our paper, we suggest an electroencephalography-
based (EEG) approach to evaluate perceived product similarity in a cross-modal taste-visual
task. We tested two potential neurometrics measured from Fz electrode: the amplitude of the
N400-like evoked response potentials (ERP) and the power of induced gamma oscillations
during 400-600 ms period after visual stimulus presentation. Both metrics showed a strong
correlation with the perceived similarity scores at both individual and group levels; however,
N400-like amplitude had greater inter-subject variability making it less suitable for practical
applications. The results based on the power of induced gamma oscillations (N=18) could be
compared to traditional hall-tests (N=200) and may potentially reveal subtle differences in
food perception that can not be captured in the hall-tests.

Keywords: EEG, ЭЭГ, gamma oscillations, гамма волны, taste perception, cross-modal task, N400, восприятие вкуса