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Tongue electrode1 lets you taste flavor that isn't there
by Michelle Starr November 25, 2013 2:46 PM PST
| What if you could play, say, the game Cooking Mama and virtually taste the dishes you make? Or watch "Iron Chef" (still the best cooking competition ever on TV) and taste the dishes alongside the judges? Nimesha Ranasinghe and his team at the National University of Singapore have built what they call the Digital Taste Simulator2, an electrode that sits on the tip of the user's tongue and re-creates flavors. It works by sending tiny alternating currents3 and slight temperature changes into the tongue that fool it into "tasting" four flavors: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. "We have found noninvasive4 electrical and thermal5 stimulation of the tip of the tongue successfully generates the primary6 taste sensations7," Ranasinghe said. At the moment, the setup is still in its early stages, quite large and awkward, but the team is redesigning it so that the electrode can stay in contact with the tongue even when the user's mouth is nearly closed. They are also working on simulating smell and texture, although, as you can probable imagine, this is rather more complicated. The team is also working on something called the Digital Lollipop. It works along the same principles to deliver different taste sensations -- perhaps sent from one user to another -- and is currently undergoing testing to see how it affects different regions of the tongue. |
1 electrode: 電極 2 simulator: 模擬器 3 alternating currents: AC 交流電 4 noninvasive: 非侵入性的 5 thermal: 熱的 6 primary: 初級的 7 sensation: 感覺 |
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