Effect of Feedback Medium for Real-time Mastication Awareness Increase using Wearable Sensors

Increasing the number of mastications can help suppress obesity, but it is difficult to keep constant awareness of it in everyday life. Besides, the conventional mastication number measurement apparatus is large and non-portable such it is difficult to use it in daily life. This research proposes a system that supports chewing and utterance consciousness improvement in real-time. It is composed of a cheap and small bone conduction microphone to collect sound intra-body sound signal, and a smartphone that processes sound and provides feedback in real-time so that it can be used conveniently in daily life. First, the accuracy of mastication counting and utterance length estimation has been evaluated, confirming to be sufficient to provide real-time feedback. Second, the evaluation of the effect on chewing and utterance consciousness of different ways and medium of real-time feedback during a meal was carried out. It was possible to clarify the impact of real-time feedback, as well as to determine the factors that affect more efficiently the improvement of mastication number and utterance.