Toward Temporal Taste Sensing: Contrasting Human Experience with Machine Perception in Food Appreciation

This paper explores the temporal aspects of food and beverage appreciation, particularly focusing on the interplay between taste sensors and human sensory experiences.It begins by discussing the fundamental principle of taste sensors, which analyze chemical substances but often fail to capture the complexities of human taste perception.To address this limitation, the concept of "artificial tongues" is introduced, aiming to replicate human taste perception more accurately.The paper then delves into the temporalities inherent in our eating experiences, categorized into three dimensions: the time of the object, the time of embodied cognition, and the time of the phenomenon.Four temporal aspects of the phenomenon are proposed: non-temporal, linear temporality, circular temporality, and point temporality, which are shaped by the eater's attention.The discussion further examines the motivations behind the temporality of food, highlighting cognitive and physical constraints such as memory and oral capacity.Additionally, the paper investigates temporalities in dessert appreciation, using the example of a strawberry mille-feuille to illustrate how the arrangement of ingredients and the sequence of consumption create unique temporal experiences.Finally, it concludes by emphasizing the need for philosophical and theoretical advancements to bridge the gap between human sensory experiences and machine sensing, thereby enhancing our understanding of taste perception in both realms.