SSRI Seminar Series

"The use of immersive virtual reality technologies to understand food choice and eating behaviors"

Dr. Travis Masterson is the director of the Health, Ingestive Behavior, and Technology Laboratory at Penn State. His lab recently received funding from the SSRI to investigate and validate the use of immersive virtual reality technology (iVR) to better understand food selection and eating behaviors. Dr. Masterson will be reviewing data on the validation of his labs iVR buffet environment. This includes reviewing data showing the effect of altering portion sizes of foods within virtual environments alters food selection behavior and that this change in behavior directly correlates with measured food intake in the laboratory. He will also give a brief overview of the future of using mixed reality technologies in eating behavior paradigms.