Application of Different Sensory Methods in Virtual Reality Sensory Analysis: Evaluating the Impact of Immersive Environments on Food Perception

Virtual Reality (VR) offers a controlled way to simulate food consumption contexts and examine how immersive environments influence sensory perception. This study evaluated the effects of three VR environments, namely a VR Sensory Booth, VR Park, and VR Food Court, on the sensory perception of biscuits and orange juice. Forty (40) participants evaluated three biscuit samples and three orange juice samples using Just-About-Right (JAR), Check-All-That-Apply (CATA), and preference methods. A post-VR questionnaire assessed immersion, graphics quality, interaction, VR technology quality, and overall experience. For biscuits, the VR Park increased JAR ratings for selected attributes, including hardness for Biscuit A from 38% to 60% and sweetness from 43% to 55%, compared with the VR Sensory Booth. For orange juice, the VR Food Court improved bitterness ratings for Orange Juice A, with JAR responses increasing from 23% to 45%. The VR Food Court also received the highest immersion score (7.55 ± 2.07), followed by the VR Sensory Booth (6.88 ± 1.73) and VR Park (6.73 ± 1.88). CATA results suggested that contextually rich VR environments were associated with more positive sensory descriptors, while the VR Sensory Booth highlighted less favourable product attributes. PCA and AHC provided exploratory evidence of different participant response patterns across environments. These findings suggest that VR can support context-based sensory testing, but the absence of a real-world non-VR control means the results should be interpreted as differences among VR contexts rather than direct evidence of improved ecological validity.