Virtual reality environments on the sensory acceptability and emotional responses of no- and full-sugar chocolate

Eating is a multimodal sensory experience affected contextual situations. A limitation with traditional consumer testing is that isolated booth environments lack ecological validity and consumer's engagement in forming perceptions. Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging method to simulate different environmental contexts. The acceptability and emotional responses of full- and no-sugar chocolate determined in sensory booths and under two VR environments (headsets) were evaluated. Untrained participants (N = 50) tasted two chocolates (FS = full-sugar and NS = no-sugar, maltitol) under three environments: (1) traditional-booths, (2) positive-VR [aesthetically open-field forest], and (3) negative-VR [closed-space old room] in a 3 × 2 randomized-factorial-design. Participants rated the acceptability of sweetness, bitterness, texture, mouth-coating, aftertaste, and overall liking (9-point scale). The intensities of sweetness, bitterness, and hardness (15-cm line-scale) were assessed. Chocolate type and VR did not affect the liking of attributes (5.4–6.8). However, FS samples had higher sweetness intensity than NS samples for positive-VR (10.8 vs. 9.1). NS samples under positive-VR were associated with overall liking. The NS and FS samples under positive-VR were associated with “energetic” and “happy”; however, under traditional booths were related to “good”, and “calm”. “Bored” and “guilty” were associated with NS samples under negative-VR. VR can be used to understand the contextual effects on consumers' perceptions.