Texture estimation of snack foods using force, vibration, and sound

Humans perceive mainly three stimuli when masticating food: taste, aroma, and texture. Food texture is a physical factor and has a significant impact on the palatability of food. Since good food texture contributes to the sales of food, food companies require a method to qualitatively evaluate and develop food texture. This study proposes using force, vibration, and sound to evaluate food texture. The measurement system used in this study consists of a magnetic food texture sensor and a microphone, which are used to measure force, vibration, and sound data simultaneously. Feature values are calculated from the measurement data. The Gaussian process regression was used to clarify the relationship between feature values and sensory evaluation values. In an experiment, if the sound data included unique feature values of a food sample, then the use of force, vibration, and sound more accurately estimated food texture than force and vibration alone.