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Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize Water Drinking Experience Ranjitha Jaddigadde Srinivasa University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia [email protected] Dana Bazazeh University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia [email protected] Mohakta Sahni University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia [email protected] ABSTRACT Perception of flavor sensation is known to be associated in humans with a distinctive pleasure. In contrast to taste, where humans can only perceive five qualities (sour, bitter, sweet, salty, and umami), humans can smell thousands of odors. The components of flavor formations are encoded in memory in such a way that odor stimulus also elicits taste properties. Incorporating virtual representations to augment the perceived taste has not been sufficiently explored. Hence, we propose a system that uses both olfactory and visual aids to induce artificial gustatory stimulations that will enhance the taste of water. A user study involving 10 subjects revealed significant increase in the water intake levels when aroma and visual effects were added. Participants reported higher levels of satisfaction when visual aids were included. Furthermore, aroma drinks reflected the highest preference among users. The presented work is the first of its kind to investigate the relationship between aroma and virtual reality elements with gustatory synthesization. KEYWORDS Aroma, Odor, Olfaction, Gustation, Water, Virtual Reality ACM Reference Format: Ranjitha Jaddigadde Srinivasa, Dana Bazazeh, and Mohakta Sahni. 2018. Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize Water Drinking Experience. In Proceedings of HIT 2018. HIT, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Article 4, 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.475/123_4 1 INTRODUCTION Water is one of the most essential nutrient for our body and is important for maintaining optimal hydration levels. Dehydration occurs when water loss is not sufficiently replaced and may result in fatigue and reduced cognitive performance in the mild cases and fatality in the more extreme cases. The average man and woman should consume around 2,900ml and 2,200ml respectively each [13]. Dissatisfaction with the taste of water is one of the reasons pushing people to towards Regular Sweetened Beverages (RSB) and fruit juices. A study that took place between 2008 and 2014 in 13 differ- ent countries showed that around 66% of adults consumed more than the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended sugar Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). HIT 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada, April 2018 © UBC 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 123-4567-24-567/08/06. https://doi.org/10.475/123_4 Figure 1: Comparison between the orthonasal and retronasal pathways [17] amount through fluids alone [10]. This highlights the importance of promoting plain water over other non-healthy options. Odors are an important aspect of any food or drink, and adds a distinguish sensation to the experience. The dominant role that smell has in influencing what we like to eat and drink goes largely unrecognized. This becomes apparent when a cold weakens our sense of smell and the food seems to become less appealing. As can be seen in Figure 1, odors can be perceived by the brain either orthonasally from the surrounding environment or retronasally through the pharynx inside the mouth [6]. The brain does the mapping between some odors and their taste counterpart, such as sweet, savory and sour. Although taste and smell are closely related in some aspects, describing an odor is a much challenging and abstract task, and where there are several studies that examines the relationship between taste exposure and food intake, that is not the case for odors. This is due to the complexity of dealing with odors and their effects in a controlled environmental setting. Virtual Reality (VR) has allowed for interactive and immersive multimedia experiences and is being used in a wide array of areas, such as gaming and therapeutics. However, the use of aroma with VR interfaces have not been full exploited. We propose a system that will enhance the user's water drinking experience by utilizing the physiological evidence showing flavor as being a combination of olfactory and gustatory stimuli. Water is perceived by most of us as being an odorless and tasteless liquid. Our goal is to ultimately design an interface system in the form of a wearable device that will attempt to induce a gustatory sensation during liquid intake through the delivery of an olfactory stimuli, that may trigger a synthetic gustatory sensation, giving the user the sensation of flavored water. Water, being odorless, does not allow for retronasal olfaction, however, we can activate the orthonasal ol- faction detection via the release of an odor sample. Additionally, we

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Page 1: Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize …...Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize Water Drinking Experience HIT 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada, April 2018 Figure 2:

Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize Water DrinkingExperience

Ranjitha Jaddigadde SrinivasaUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, British Columbia

[email protected]

Dana BazazehUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, British Columbia

[email protected]

Mohakta SahniUniversity of British ColumbiaVancouver, British Columbia

[email protected]

ABSTRACTPerception of flavor sensation is known to be associated in humanswith a distinctive pleasure. In contrast to taste, where humans canonly perceive five qualities (sour, bitter, sweet, salty, and umami),humans can smell thousands of odors. The components of flavorformations are encoded in memory in such a way that odor stimulusalso elicits taste properties. Incorporating virtual representationsto augment the perceived taste has not been sufficiently explored.Hence, we propose a system that uses both olfactory and visual aidsto induce artificial gustatory stimulations that will enhance the tasteof water. A user study involving 10 subjects revealed significantincrease in the water intake levels when aroma and visual effectswere added. Participants reported higher levels of satisfaction whenvisual aids were included. Furthermore, aroma drinks reflected thehighest preference among users. The presented work is the first ofits kind to investigate the relationship between aroma and virtualreality elements with gustatory synthesization.

KEYWORDSAroma, Odor, Olfaction, Gustation, Water, Virtual Reality

ACM Reference Format:Ranjitha Jaddigadde Srinivasa, Dana Bazazeh, and Mohakta Sahni. 2018.Olfactory & Visual Stimulation to Revolutionize Water Drinking Experience.In Proceedings of HIT 2018. HIT, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Article 4, 7 pages.https://doi.org/10.475/123_4

1 INTRODUCTIONWater is one of the most essential nutrient for our body and isimportant for maintaining optimal hydration levels. Dehydrationoccurs when water loss is not sufficiently replaced and may resultin fatigue and reduced cognitive performance in the mild cases andfatality in the more extreme cases. The average man and womanshould consume around 2,900ml and 2,200ml respectively each [13].Dissatisfaction with the taste of water is one of the reasons pushingpeople to towards Regular Sweetened Beverages (RSB) and fruitjuices. A study that took place between 2008 and 2014 in 13 differ-ent countries showed that around 66% of adults consumed morethan the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended sugar

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citationon the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored.For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s).HIT 2018, Vancouver, BC, Canada, April 2018© UBC 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).ACM ISBN 123-4567-24-567/08/06.https://doi.org/10.475/123_4

Figure 1: Comparison between the orthonasal andretronasal pathways [17]

amount through fluids alone [10]. This highlights the importanceof promoting plain water over other non-healthy options.

Odors are an important aspect of any food or drink, and addsa distinguish sensation to the experience. The dominant role thatsmell has in influencing what we like to eat and drink goes largelyunrecognized. This becomes apparent when a cold weakens oursense of smell and the food seems to become less appealing. Ascan be seen in Figure 1, odors can be perceived by the brain eitherorthonasally from the surrounding environment or retronasallythrough the pharynx inside the mouth [6]. The brain does themapping between some odors and their taste counterpart, suchas sweet, savory and sour. Although taste and smell are closelyrelated in some aspects, describing an odor is a much challengingand abstract task, and where there are several studies that examinesthe relationship between taste exposure and food intake, that is notthe case for odors. This is due to the complexity of dealing withodors and their effects in a controlled environmental setting.

Virtual Reality (VR) has allowed for interactive and immersivemultimedia experiences and is being used in a wide array of areas,such as gaming and therapeutics. However, the use of aroma withVR interfaces have not been full exploited.

We propose a system that will enhance the user's water drinkingexperience by utilizing the physiological evidence showing flavoras being a combination of olfactory and gustatory stimuli. Water isperceived by most of us as being an odorless and tasteless liquid.Our goal is to ultimately design an interface system in the form ofa wearable device that will attempt to induce a gustatory sensationduring liquid intake through the delivery of an olfactory stimuli,that may trigger a synthetic gustatory sensation, giving the user thesensation of flavored water. Water, being odorless, does not allowfor retronasal olfaction, however, we can activate the orthonasal ol-faction detection via the release of an odor sample. Additionally, we

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added visual aids in the form of VR 360 videos to test the influenceof such on our system.

Our study focuses on 2 main hypothesis. Our first hypothesisformed assumes that the addition of olfactory and visual stimuliin the form of pleasant scents will enhance the user experienceduring the water drinking activity. Moreover, we believe that thiswill also promote a higher level of water consumption. Both ofthese hypothesis were tested during a user study and reported inthe following sections.

2 RELATEDWORK & BACKGROUNDPrior investigators have reported a wide range of classification inswallow identification using single channel and multichannel sen-sors [18]. Toward this direction, a new multi-sensory non-invasiveportable system capable of detecting spontaneous swallowing in apatient population has been developed [5]. This system provides avastly more reliable measure of swallowing frequency by rejectingartifacts associated with speech, body movement, coughing andbackground interferences. While we included some work from theimplementation of these systems, we will also focus on developing amethod that allows feasible lightweight interface that measures theswallowing sounds to precisely distinguish the disparities betweenthe types of food consumed.

Towards the direction of simulating the taste of substance con-sumed, Food Simulator [11] is a haptic interface that stimulatesthe sense of biting. The device can display food texture withoutchemical taste, unlike real food. The mechanical configuration ofthe device is designed such that it will fit into the mouth, witha force sensor attached to the end effector. The Food Simulatorcan change the properties of food while chewing. For instance, Acracker can be suddenly changed into a gel. While this system cantrigger a novel experience whilst chewing, we implemented oursystem based on the olfactory aspects to stimulate gustatory sensa-tions, a novel technique that has not been significantly exploredyet.

Early work suggests that odor and taste are independent. Mur-phy, Cain and Barthoshuck [8], for example, examined the perceivedodor intensity, taste intensity and overall intensity of mixtures ofsodium saccharin and ethyl butyrate. They found that the overallintensity of the mixtures approximate the simple sum of the inten-sities of the unmixed components. The same pattern of results wasalso obtained by Murphy and Cain [7] for sucrosecitral mixtures.However, in both studies, authors indicate that, despite this appar-ent independency between taste and aroma, participants tend toperceive olfactory stimulation as taste. Since these first demonstra-tions of taste-odor confusion many studies have investigated theeffect of odors on sweet taste perception over the past 20 years. Webase our study on this principal notion of odor perception effect ontaste.

Ambient odors presented via the nose, orthonasal, have theirmost important function in the anticipation phase of eating: todetect food sources in our environment and induce appetite. Inter-estingly, besides a general appetite-inducing effect, several studieshave now clearly demonstrated that odors induce appetite specificfor the cued product Fedoroff et al. [9]. Drawing from these conclu-sions, we believe that the aroma drink will elevate the water intake

levels. Such learned associations between the odor and the post-ingestive effects of the food is due to repeated combined exposurethroughout life. Ramaekers et al. [16] showed that these appetite-enhancing effects occur immediately upon exposure (within oneminute), suggesting the body can adjust its responses rapidly todiffering odor environments, in real life.

Virtual environments are now being popularly used as a pleasur-able representation of the real world for a wide variety of applica-tions. The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the Universityof Southern California has been working towards exploring the us-ability aspects of employing olfaction in VR to treat post traumaticstress disorder [15] Olfactory information with visual aspects hasalso been shown to play a crucial role in elevating the sense of pres-ence when it is presented synchronously with a movie Nakamotoand Yoshikawa [14].

3 SYSTEM DESIGNIn this section, we will describe in detail our proposed prototype, aswell as a Proof of Concept (POC) that has been designed to evaluatethe validity and effectiveness of the system functions.

3.1 Proposed SystemOur proposed system constitutes of 5 major components. A sensorto detect and track swallowing events in the laryngopharynx regionof the neck, odor containers to hold the aroma, a VR headgear, amicrocontroller to monitor and signal different components in thesystem, and a neck piece in the form of a collar as a wearable thathold the microcontroller, odor container and swallow sensor.

The sensor will be used to track swallowing events detected inthe throat. The iASUS NT3 Throat Mic would be suitable for thispurpose as it features a noise terminator transponder that will allowfor noise cancellation, which is important for this purpose [3]. Theway the microphone works is by absorbing the vibrations detectedin the laryngopharynx region of the neck and generated by a bolusof food and drink passing through. This sensor will therefore beplaced in direct contact with the laryngopharynx region of the neck,and is able to prevent the absorption of any vibrations coming fromthe air medium, hence hindering noises.

The liquid odor samples to be used in our system will be placedin a small container along with a pump connected to it. The pumpwill await for signals from the controller and once received, willgently push air into the odor holding container. The container willalso have a small hole that will allow the scented air to be ejectedout of the system and within close proximity to the user's nose,thus creating the olfactory stimuli.

VR headgears are available in many types and shapes, rangingfrom cheaper cardboard versions like the Google Cardboard [1],to more expensive ones like the HTC Vive [2] and the Oculus Rift[4]. The headgear will be wirelessly connected to the neck-piecethrough the controller to allow for an automated process of flowcontrol.

A micro-controller would be used as an interface between thedetection sensor, the VR headgear and the odor containers. Oncethe sensor detects a liquid swallow event, a signal will be sent to thecontroller, which will then inform the actuator pump in the odor

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Figure 2: Schematic diagram of proof of concept

container to eject the scented air into the user's nose, and to theVR headgear to display a scenery relevant for the selected aroma.

Finally, a neck piece in the form of a collar which will should bedesigned using a neoprene material due to its flexible characteristicsas well as its ability to insulate from electricity. It will includepockets to hold the sensor, micro-controller and the odor cartridges.The diameter of the collar should be carefully designed to best suitdifferent neck sizes, without causing any uncomfort or chokingcondition to the participants. The average neck circumference is35 cm for women and 50 cm for men [12]. Therefore, two differentcollar sizes should be designed, one for each gender group. Thepockets will make for ease of component transfer between the twocollar sizes.

3.2 Proof of Concept (POC)It is important to first test the concept using simpler materials. Todo so, we designed a POC as can be seen in Figure 2. This consistsof an aroma dispensing system, a larynx microphone and a googlecardboard VR headgear.

Themicrophone is used as a swallow detection sensor, to monitorthe swallow events and is placed appropriately on the laryngophar-ynx region of the neck. The microphone is connected to a loudspeaker, and the detection event is made manually by us, whichmay introduce a small time lag in generating the signal to the aromadispensing system.

The aroma dispensing system is made up of a container withconnected air tubes on both sides. One end of the tube is connectedto an air pump, and the other end towards the user's nose. We haveselected 4 different aroma samples to be used in our POC. A sweetvanilla scent, a citrus lemon scent, an alcoholic run scent and aspicy peppermint scent. We chose these aroma flavors to cover

Figure 3: POC implemented prototype

a wide range of possible preferences. The air pump will push airthrough the aroma container, carrying a scent over to the otherside where the user is. Finally, the VR headgear is used to displaya scenery that is relevant to each of the 4 smells. We have found4 different 360 view sceneries, a beach view for the citrus scent, abar view for the rum scent, a forest for the peppermint scent and abakery for the vanilla scent. The implemented POC can be seen inFigure 3.

4 EXPERIMENT DESIGNThe goal of our experiment was to study the effect of aroma stimu-lation and visual aids on bolstering the user's desire to drink morewater

4.1 Drink ConditionsThe 6 different type of drinks offered were:

(1) Plain water with no odor(2) dispensed Aroma drink with 4 different flavors;(a) Lemon(b) Vanilla(c) Pepper Mint(d) Rum

(3) Visual aids with Preferred aroma

4.2 Pilot Testing of Early DesignTo review important aspects of our system, such as comfort, safetyand usability, we piloted 2 participants. The feedback receivedhelped us to improve the user experience and to account for a fewissues that were identified. Initially, we used an opaque and coloredglass for every drink conditions to hide the appearance of water.However, we were not able to visually conceal the substance, sincethe rim of the glass was not sealed. This diminished the illusion ofsipping through a flavored drink. Additionally, with the bulkiness of

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the headgear, users faced difficulties in the water drinking conditionwith visual aids. Lastly, the noise from the air dispenser seemed tocause slight inconvenience among the users. Each of these issueswere considered and fixed during the final experiment.

4.3 ParticipantsFor our experiment, we recruited 10 participants (6 males and 4females). Though our study did not target a specific age group, mostspanned in the group of 20-39. However, the main condition wasthat they meet the average levels of olfaction. Also, it was importantthat they had no known allergies towards the aromas that was used.To ensure that the participants met these preliminary conditions,they were asked to fill a quick survey prior to the experiment toglean more on the required background details. A Written consentwas obtained from all participants prior to conducting any study.

4.4 ApparatusEach participant was asked to wear a neck piece mounted with amicrophone connected to speaker. This was to collect the swallowdetection signal before releasing the aroma. An air flow genera-tor was used to allow scented air with controlled pressure, whichwas connected to one end of the aroma dispensing system. Saltycrackers were provided to the participants prior to every scenarioto stimulate the thirst condition. Measuring utensils was used toaccurately measure the amount of water consumed after each case.

4.5 TasksTo explore the overall effectiveness of our proposed system, par-ticipants were asked to carry out a set of tasks within a set uplab environment. The tasks were categorized as simple and non-invasive. Each user was inquired with a set of basic questions toensure that the expected requirements of the study were met. Aftera brief overview of our system, users were asked to wear a neckpiece-based interface to signal their swallowing occurrence. A glassof about 250 ml of water was offered to repeat the water drink-ing action with 4 different and unique aromas being dispensed.Each case of drinking activity was followed by a likert scale basedquestionnaire to rate their levels of contentment. At the end, theusers were asked to select their favorite aroma and this time thewater drinking action was repeated with the appropriate virtualreality(VR) scenes along with the preferred aroma being dispensed.This was followed by a post-experiment survey to further reporton their preferences.

4.6 ProcedureSwallowing detection was done in 6 distinct activity levels; onewithout any odor and 4 activities with 4 different odors, and thelast one with visual aids and the preferred odor. However, the orderof the assignment of these activities was randomized to counterbal-ance any carry-over effects that might influence the final objectiveof our study. For instance, users might get weary of drinking waterduring the course of activities and the resulting fatigue can hamperthe inferences of the last few activities. While each participant wasoffered about 250 ml of water for each case, there was no obligationset for the users to utilize all of it to report on their druthers.

In natural environments, airborne chemical stimuli are distributedunpredictably in time and space, and odorants from innumerablesources intermix freely. Hence the challenge is in human brainsdetecting the potential signals of interest from these chemicallynoisy environments. Therefore, we introduced a few precautionarymeasures to reduce the effects of different aromas being used in oursystem. Air with the required aroma was released with controlledflow through small tubes. This minimized the very possibilitiesof the odor being induced into the surrounding air. Furthermore,each user was given a small break of about 1-2 minutes after eachcase to reflect on their water drinking experience on a scale of 1to 5, 5 being the best tasting palate. The reason behind allottinga minute's break between the cases was also to ensure that theresults of the later samples would no be affected by the previousone. In the one-minute break, coffee beans were offered to reducethe effects of carrying the smell of previous aroma with the nextone. We also ensured to keep the space of study free of any scentsor aromas to completely reduce the ambiguity in showing an ap-propriate response. Experiment was run with one subject at a timeto avoid discrepancies in odor sensing and biased results with thepresence of another subject.

To preserve the illusion of drinking flavored drink several mea-sures were undertaken. An opaque glass covered with a lid on topwas used to serve the drink in each condition. Participants werepresented with a straw to sip through the drink like devouring tastychemical drink. Plain water condition was also given with a tubeattached to the glass without any aroma being released. The aromadispensing system was operated behind the user's view, to ensurehis unawareness to the external aroma being released. Additionally,the goal of the experiment was not revealed to the participantsto eschew any elements of inclination towards the objective andto maintain the phantasm of drinking a chemical drink. Classicalmusic was played in the background to minimize the commotionwhile the experiment was conducted.

Strict controls were employed to trigger the aroma release andvisual aids after detecting the first occurrence of swallowing water.The signal through the neck piece-based interface was monitoredthrough a speaker away from the participants, to eliminate anydistraction or discrepancies that might hinder their water drinkingexperience. However, the aroma release was well coordinated intime with the detection cues. Also, the view of the scenery with thehelp of VR headgear was blocked using an opaque black-coloredpiece of paper.

Though the performance of our system relies solely on the user'sexperience and satisfaction, the amount of water consumed wastracked for each case to monitor their sub-conscious liking levelsfor each condition and also to record any ambiguous regard oraversion for a specific odor. Once all the experimental tasks werecompleted, a comparative survey-based questionnaire was handedover to the participants to further glean on their satisfaction levelsand preferences. At the end, the user's preferred aroma was givento the user with the appropriate Virtual Reality(VR) scene. Thecollected data values were statistically evaluated to confirm ourclaimed objective of the proposed system.

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Figure 4: Average amount of water consumed show higheramounts for aroma drinks and VR when compared with wa-ter.

4.7 HypothesesOur system evaluation is mainly in two folds; performance in termsof highest recorded water intake levels, user preference is terms oftheir preferred choices and satisfaction levels.

(1) H1. Performance(a) Participants will demonstrate higher levels of water in-

take activity with one of the flavors used as an olfactorystimulator

(b) Participants will demonstrate higher levels of water intakeactivity with relevant visual aids.

(2) H2. User Preference(a) Participants will prefer consuming water with one of the

odor flavors used during the study.(b) Participants will prefer consuming water with visual aids

along with relevant odor

5 RESULTS & ANALYSIS5.1 Quantitative FindingsWe ran separate 2x6 (drink type x presentation order) repeatedmeasures ANOVA on the amount of water consumed in each caseto compare the effects of using aroma against plain water as thebaseline. All pairwise comparisons were protected against Type Ierror using a Bonferroni adjustment. We report on measures thatwere significant (p < .05). Along with statistical significance, wereport partial eta squared (2), a measure of effect size. Not includingbreak times, the experimental tasks for each participant took anaverage of 15 minutes. One participant was removed from theanalysis. This participant's results were considered to be an outliersince he clearly mentioned his dislike for flavored drinks. We reporton data from 9 participants.

Figure 4 shows the average water consumed for each case. Nosignificant difference was observed in the water intake levels acrossthe 4 aroma conditions. However, Pairwise comparisons with plainwater showed significantly higher amount of water consumed witharoma and aroma+VR treatments;

Figure 5: Overall user preference

(1) Drink with Vanilla-flavored aroma [F(1,8) = 6.353,p = 0.036,η2 = .443]

(2) Drinkwith Pepper-mint aroma [F(1,8) = 5.535,p = 0.042,η2 =.418]

(3) Drink with Lemon [F(1,8) = 7.932,p = 0.023,η2 = .498](4) Drink with Rum [F(1,8) = 5.543,p = 0.046,η2 = .409](5) Drink with preferred aroma + VR [F(1,8) = 42.105,p =

0.000,η2 = .840]

5.2 Subjective FindingsDrink with aroma was preferred overall by 5 participants, while 4preferred aroma drink with VR and only one preferred drinkingplain water as shown Figure 5. Among the 4 different flavors ofaroma offered, 5 participants preferred Lemon, 3 preferred vanillaand one preferred rum. We calculated an experience measure foreach case with aroma against plain water. Since the ratings wereon a likert scale, a non-parametric Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test wasused.

We calculated an overall satisfaction measure to derive on theoverall experience of drinking water with our system. Ratings werefrom 1 to 7, where 7 indicated strong positive agreement. As shownin the Figure 6, 7 out of 10 participants rated more than 4 whichshowed high contentment for the proposed approach. Althoughno statistically significant difference in the experience of drinkingwater in each case with aroma was recorded, adding visual aidsshowed significantly higher satisfaction in terms of experience(z = −2.565,p = .010) when compared to plain water. Also, wewere curious to investigate the relevance and impact of the visualscenery included corresponding to the preferred aroma. Resultsfrom the survey showed that 8 out of 10 participants as shown inFigure 7 found it to be a pleasant experience and therefore resultedin aiding the water intake levels.

We summarize our results according to our hypotheses:(1) H1. Performance(a) Participants will demonstrate higher levels of water in-

take activity with one of the flavors used as an olfactorystimulator - Supported

(b) Participants will demonstrate higher levels of water intakeactivity with relevant visual aids - Supported

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Figure 6: Overall Water drinking experience rated by usersusing our proposed system

Figure 7: User satisfaction ratings of visual aids on a scale of1 -7, (7 showing extremely pleasant)

(2) H2. User Preference(a) Participants will prefer consuming water with one of the

odor flavors used during the study -Not SupportedWhile50% of the selected sample size preferred drinking waterwith aroma overall, no significant difference was foundwith one of the flavors.

(b) Participants will prefer consuming water with visual aidsalong with relevant odor - Supported

6 DISCUSSIONThe results of this experiment showed that the use of olfactoryand visual simulations enhanced the water drinking experiencefor most people. We investigated our results in 2 main folds. Acomparison of plain water was made with and without inducedaroma and that showed an overall preference for the aroma drinkas can be seen in Figure 4. This claim is backed up by the evidenceshowing that the quantity of water consumed for aroma drinksproved to be significantly higher than for plain water.

There were several positive comments supporting this claims.One participant said ''I like the smell illusion, made it feel like the

drink was actually flavored''and another stated that ''I liked the ideaof using VR to simulate a pleasant environment for taking a drink''

Although, the drinking experience on a single case level didnot reflect a significant improvement for aroma drinks, addingvisual aids proved to add a comparatively larger statistical sig-nificance. Moreover, most participants saw that visual aids waseffective in fostering a stronger simulated flavor, when paired withthe aroma drinks. It was recorded that participants drank more orsame amount of water when given their preferred flavor along withVR.

There were interesting trends noticed through the course of ourexperiment. Firstly, there was a correlation between the user's av-erage daily water intake and their willingness to accept any newalterations to plain water. 2 out of 12 participants stated that theydrink around 3-4 liters of water per day and are accustomed tothe taste of water and hence did not appreciate the idea of alter-ing the flavor. This participant stated that ''Drinking water shouldbe a simple exercise. Go to the tap, get a glass of water, drink it.Should not need to complicate it with use of VR, etc''. Secondly, weobserved that the amount of water intake gradually decreased withthe scenarios, due to the increased satiation in the users. The thirstlevel was seen to drop as they have consumed more and more wa-ter. Counterbalancing this with a random assignment of scenarioshelped us reduce the bias in this situation. Another noticed trendwas that most participants, 5 out of 10, selected lemon-flavoredaroma drink as their preferred choice. Lastly, many of the partici-pants have had a meal less than an hour prior to the experiment.Also, given the fact the daily water intake level for most peopleranged between 1-2 liters, this lessened the overall drinking levelfor each scenario.

It should be noted that we could not exclude the other confound-ing factors when the liquid consumed was not plain water. Sincethe study was conducted in a lab space, subjects might have modi-fied an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness ofbeing observed. Besides, since our design included a survey, it camewith the common limitations of Hawthorne effect. To make a goodimpression, participants might have tried to give socially desirableanswers to help researchers get the results being sought. In thiscase, the results are likely to be flawed to some extent. Last but notthe least, the sample size that we considered in the scope of thismilestone is relatively small, which makes it hard for generalization.

7 CONCLUSIONS & FUTUREWORKWe have introduced a novel revolutionary approach to bolster waterdrinking experience using olfactory and visual stimulations. Ourproposed system consisted of a wearable device that detects fluidflow and signals the release of an olfactory sensation with relevantvisual aids using VR. In order to test the usability and functionalityaspects of our proposal, we designed a Proof of Concept (POC) con-sisting of manually controlled components. We conducted a userstudy where we recruited 10 participants, each going through 6 sce-narios. These comprised of drinking plain water, 4 different aromadrinks and a preferred flavored drink with VR. Results showed sig-nificant increase in the amount of water for both, with aroma andwith VR added. The highest overall user preference was recordedfor aroma drinks. The addition of visual aids elevated the usersâĂŹ

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experience levels for the better. This shows promising potential forexpanding our POC into a working prototype in hopes of changingthe water drinking habits.

Odors are complex to deal with and quantify in controlled ex-perimental settings. Although strict measures were undertaken tominimize the bias in the system, we could not completely eliminatethem. One way to overcome this in the future is through the useof an olfactometer to ensure accurate delivery of aromas in a con-trolled manner. An interesting direction would be to incorporateAugmented Reality (AR) into our system as it allows for a more re-alistic interaction between the virtual and real world environments.This may likely enhance the user experience furthermore.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe would like to thank Dr. Sidney Fels for his valuable support andguidance throughout the course of this project.

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