1 00:00:00,817 --> 00:00:04,087 So I had this very interesting experience 2 00:00:04,111 --> 00:00:05,261 five years ago. 3 00:00:06,278 --> 00:00:09,103 You know, me and my husband, we were out grocery shopping, 4 00:00:09,127 --> 00:00:10,720 as we do every other day, 5 00:00:10,744 --> 00:00:14,093 but this time, we found this fancy, 6 00:00:14,117 --> 00:00:17,839 you know, I'm talking fair-trade, I'm talking organic, 7 00:00:17,863 --> 00:00:20,395 I'm talking Kenyan, single-origin coffee 8 00:00:20,419 --> 00:00:22,152 that we splurged and got. 9 00:00:23,252 --> 00:00:26,554 And that was when the problem started already. 10 00:00:26,578 --> 00:00:30,418 You know, my husband, he deemed this coffee blend superior 11 00:00:30,442 --> 00:00:32,831 to our regular and much cheaper coffee, 12 00:00:32,855 --> 00:00:37,204 which made me imagine a life based solely on fancy coffee 13 00:00:37,228 --> 00:00:39,656 and I saw our household budged explode. 14 00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:40,681 (Laughter) 15 00:00:40,705 --> 00:00:41,855 And worse ... 16 00:00:43,038 --> 00:00:46,140 I also feared that this investment would be in vain. 17 00:00:46,164 --> 00:00:49,680 That we wouldn't be able to notice this difference after all. 18 00:00:51,355 --> 00:00:55,188 Unfortunately, especially for my husband, 19 00:00:55,212 --> 00:00:58,332 he had momentarily forgotten that he's married to a neuroscientist 20 00:00:58,356 --> 00:01:00,141 with a specialty in food science. 21 00:01:00,165 --> 00:01:01,339 (Laughter) 22 00:01:01,363 --> 00:01:02,536 Alright? 23 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:04,187 So without further ado, 24 00:01:04,211 --> 00:01:06,428 I mean, I just put him to the test. 25 00:01:07,126 --> 00:01:09,087 I set up an experiment 26 00:01:09,111 --> 00:01:11,996 where I first blindfolded my husband. 27 00:01:12,475 --> 00:01:13,626 (Laughter) 28 00:01:13,650 --> 00:01:17,101 Then I brewed the two types of coffee 29 00:01:17,125 --> 00:01:19,705 and I told him that I would serve them to him 30 00:01:19,729 --> 00:01:21,069 one at a time. 31 00:01:22,387 --> 00:01:24,236 Now, with clear certainty, 32 00:01:24,260 --> 00:01:26,678 my husband, he described the first cup of coffee 33 00:01:26,702 --> 00:01:27,998 as more raw and bitter. 34 00:01:28,022 --> 00:01:30,752 You know, a coffee that would be ideal for the mornings 35 00:01:30,776 --> 00:01:34,747 with the sole purpose of terrorizing the body awake by its alarming taste. 36 00:01:34,771 --> 00:01:36,874 (Laughter) 37 00:01:36,898 --> 00:01:39,762 The second cup of coffee, on the other hand, 38 00:01:39,786 --> 00:01:43,577 was both fruity and delightful. 39 00:01:43,601 --> 00:01:47,668 You know, coffee that one can enjoy in the evening and relax. 40 00:01:49,466 --> 00:01:52,299 Little did my husband know, however, 41 00:01:52,323 --> 00:01:55,648 that I hadn't actually given him the two types of coffee. 42 00:01:55,672 --> 00:01:58,810 I had given him the exact same cup of coffee twice. 43 00:01:58,834 --> 00:02:01,001 (Laughter) 44 00:02:01,358 --> 00:02:03,992 And obviously, it wasn't this one cup of coffee 45 00:02:04,016 --> 00:02:06,960 that had suddenly gone from horrible to fantastic. 46 00:02:07,270 --> 00:02:11,137 No, this taste difference was a product of my husband's own mind. 47 00:02:11,521 --> 00:02:14,528 Of his bias in favor of the fancy coffee 48 00:02:14,552 --> 00:02:17,941 that made him experience taste differences that just weren't there. 49 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:24,341 Alright, so, having saved our household budget, 50 00:02:24,365 --> 00:02:26,048 and finishing on a very good laugh, 51 00:02:26,072 --> 00:02:27,247 me especially -- 52 00:02:27,271 --> 00:02:28,278 (Laughter) 53 00:02:28,302 --> 00:02:31,268 I then started wondering just how we could have received 54 00:02:31,292 --> 00:02:34,894 two such different responses from a single cup of coffee. 55 00:02:35,331 --> 00:02:39,022 Why would my husband make such a bold statement 56 00:02:39,046 --> 00:02:43,493 at the risk of being publicly mocked for the rest of his life? 57 00:02:43,517 --> 00:02:45,350 (Laughter) 58 00:02:46,831 --> 00:02:49,022 The striking answer is 59 00:02:49,046 --> 00:02:51,172 that I think you would have done the same. 60 00:02:51,196 --> 00:02:54,442 And that's the biggest challenge in my field of science, 61 00:02:54,466 --> 00:02:57,776 assessing what's reality behind these answers 62 00:02:57,800 --> 00:02:58,966 that we receive. 63 00:02:58,990 --> 00:03:01,801 Because how are we going to make food tastier 64 00:03:01,825 --> 00:03:05,419 if we cannot rely on what people actually say they like? 65 00:03:06,728 --> 00:03:10,258 To understand, let's first have a look at how we actually sense food. 66 00:03:10,923 --> 00:03:13,241 When I drink a cup of coffee, 67 00:03:13,265 --> 00:03:17,407 I detect this cup of coffee by receptors on my body, 68 00:03:17,431 --> 00:03:21,878 information which is then turned into activated neurons in my brain. 69 00:03:22,570 --> 00:03:25,300 Wavelengths of light are converted to colors. 70 00:03:25,324 --> 00:03:29,459 Molecules in the liquid are detected by receptors in my mouth, 71 00:03:29,483 --> 00:03:32,804 and categorized as one of five basic tastes. 72 00:03:33,266 --> 00:03:37,496 That's salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. 73 00:03:38,433 --> 00:03:41,734 Molecules in the air are detected by receptors in my nose 74 00:03:41,758 --> 00:03:43,292 and converted to odors. 75 00:03:43,704 --> 00:03:46,442 And ditto for touch, for temperature, 76 00:03:46,466 --> 00:03:48,077 for sound and more. 77 00:03:48,394 --> 00:03:52,252 All this information is detected by my receptors 78 00:03:52,276 --> 00:03:55,545 and converted into signals between neurons in my brain. 79 00:03:55,569 --> 00:04:00,456 Information which is then woven together and integrated, 80 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:03,331 so that my brain recognizes 81 00:04:03,355 --> 00:04:09,112 that yes, I just had a cup of coffee, and yes, I liked it. 82 00:04:09,763 --> 00:04:11,739 And only then, 83 00:04:11,763 --> 00:04:14,747 after all this neuron heavy-lifting, 84 00:04:14,771 --> 00:04:18,036 do we consciously experience this cup of coffee. 85 00:04:18,988 --> 00:04:22,922 And this is now where we have a very common misconception. 86 00:04:23,473 --> 00:04:27,004 People tend to think that what we experience consciously 87 00:04:27,028 --> 00:04:30,218 must then be an absolute true reflection of reality. 88 00:04:30,588 --> 00:04:32,302 But as you just heard, 89 00:04:32,326 --> 00:04:35,842 there are many stages of neural interpretation 90 00:04:35,866 --> 00:04:37,889 in between the physical item 91 00:04:37,913 --> 00:04:40,371 and the conscious experience of it. 92 00:04:40,395 --> 00:04:42,514 Which means that sometimes, 93 00:04:42,538 --> 00:04:46,341 this conscious experience is not really reflecting that reality at all. 94 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:48,920 Like what happened to my husband. 95 00:04:49,808 --> 00:04:53,950 That's because some physical stimuli may just be so weak 96 00:04:53,974 --> 00:04:58,347 that they just can't break that barrier to enter our conscious mind, 97 00:04:58,371 --> 00:05:00,253 while the information that does 98 00:05:00,277 --> 00:05:04,363 may get twisted on its way there by our hidden biases. 99 00:05:04,824 --> 00:05:08,995 And people, they have a lot of biases. 100 00:05:11,649 --> 00:05:14,181 Yes, if you're sitting there right now, thinking ... 101 00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:18,776 you could probably have done better than my husband, 102 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:22,347 you could probably have assessed those coffees correctly, 103 00:05:22,371 --> 00:05:25,180 then you're actually suffering from a bias. 104 00:05:26,116 --> 00:05:28,585 A bias called the bias blind spot. 105 00:05:28,609 --> 00:05:33,415 Our tendency to see ourselves as less biased than other people. 106 00:05:33,717 --> 00:05:34,907 (Laughter) 107 00:05:34,931 --> 00:05:36,424 And yeah, we can even be biased 108 00:05:36,448 --> 00:05:38,415 about the biases that we're biased about. 109 00:05:38,439 --> 00:05:39,440 (Laughter) 110 00:05:39,464 --> 00:05:41,588 Not trying to make this any easier. 111 00:05:42,270 --> 00:05:44,738 A bias that we know in the food industry 112 00:05:44,762 --> 00:05:46,896 is the courtesy bias. 113 00:05:47,619 --> 00:05:50,032 This is a bias where we give an opinion 114 00:05:50,056 --> 00:05:53,711 which is considered socially acceptable, 115 00:05:53,735 --> 00:05:56,400 but it's certainly not our own opinion, right? 116 00:05:57,575 --> 00:06:00,130 And I'm challenged by this as a food researcher, 117 00:06:00,154 --> 00:06:05,252 because when people say they like my new sugar-reduced milkshake, 118 00:06:05,276 --> 00:06:06,458 do they now? 119 00:06:06,482 --> 00:06:07,537 (Laughter) 120 00:06:07,561 --> 00:06:09,910 Or are they saying they like it 121 00:06:09,934 --> 00:06:12,915 because they know I'm listening and they want to please me? 122 00:06:13,544 --> 00:06:16,768 Or maybe they just to seem fit and healthy in my ears. 123 00:06:18,115 --> 00:06:19,718 I wouldn't know. 124 00:06:19,742 --> 00:06:24,355 But worse, they wouldn't even know themselves. 125 00:06:25,348 --> 00:06:26,705 Even trained food assessors, 126 00:06:26,729 --> 00:06:29,300 and that's people who have been explicitly taught 127 00:06:29,324 --> 00:06:33,451 to disentangle the sense of smell and the sense of taste, 128 00:06:33,475 --> 00:06:36,582 may still be biased to evaluate products sweeter 129 00:06:36,606 --> 00:06:38,139 if they contain vanilla. 130 00:06:38,455 --> 00:06:39,605 Why? 131 00:06:39,978 --> 00:06:43,128 Well, it's certainly not because vanilla actually tastes sweet. 132 00:06:44,510 --> 00:06:48,466 It's because even these professionals are human, 133 00:06:48,490 --> 00:06:51,720 and have eaten lot of desserts, like us, 134 00:06:51,744 --> 00:06:55,239 and have therefore learned to associate sweetness and vanilla. 135 00:06:56,056 --> 00:06:59,373 So taste and smell and other sensory information 136 00:06:59,397 --> 00:07:02,484 is inextricably entangled in our conscious mind. 137 00:07:02,508 --> 00:07:05,434 So on one hand, we can actually use this. 138 00:07:05,458 --> 00:07:07,927 We can use these conscious experiences, 139 00:07:07,951 --> 00:07:12,220 use this data, exploit it by adding vanilla instead of sugar 140 00:07:12,244 --> 00:07:13,844 to sweeten our products. 141 00:07:14,823 --> 00:07:17,149 But on the other hand, 142 00:07:17,173 --> 00:07:18,760 with these conscious evaluations, 143 00:07:18,784 --> 00:07:19,982 I still wouldn't know 144 00:07:20,006 --> 00:07:22,871 whether people actually liked that sugar-reduced milkshake. 145 00:07:24,006 --> 00:07:25,791 So how do we get around this problem? 146 00:07:25,815 --> 00:07:28,077 How do we actually assess what's reality 147 00:07:28,101 --> 00:07:30,736 behind these conscious food evaluations? 148 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:34,935 The key is to remove the barrier of the conscious mind 149 00:07:34,959 --> 00:07:38,231 and instead target the information in the brain directly. 150 00:07:39,015 --> 00:07:40,316 And it turns out 151 00:07:40,340 --> 00:07:43,407 our brain holds a lot of fascinating secrets. 152 00:07:43,872 --> 00:07:48,940 Our brain constantly receives sensory information from our entire body, 153 00:07:48,964 --> 00:07:51,321 most of which we don't even become aware of, 154 00:07:51,345 --> 00:07:54,265 like the taste information that I constantly receive 155 00:07:54,289 --> 00:07:56,158 from my gastrointestinal tract. 156 00:07:56,647 --> 00:08:00,718 And my brain will also act on all this sensory information. 157 00:08:01,274 --> 00:08:04,710 It will alter my behavior without my knowledge, 158 00:08:04,734 --> 00:08:07,990 and it can increase the diameter of my pupils 159 00:08:08,014 --> 00:08:09,974 if I experience something I really like. 160 00:08:10,355 --> 00:08:13,410 And increase my sweat production ever so slightly 161 00:08:13,434 --> 00:08:15,301 if that emotion was intense. 162 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:17,990 And with brain scans, 163 00:08:18,014 --> 00:08:21,280 we can now assess this information in the brain. 164 00:08:22,021 --> 00:08:24,469 Specifically, I have used a brain-scanning technique 165 00:08:24,493 --> 00:08:26,846 called electroencephalography, 166 00:08:26,870 --> 00:08:28,703 or "EEG" in short, 167 00:08:28,727 --> 00:08:32,672 which involves wearing a cap studded with electrodes, 168 00:08:32,696 --> 00:08:35,164 128 in my case. 169 00:08:35,957 --> 00:08:39,568 Each electrode then measures the electrical activity of the brain 170 00:08:39,592 --> 00:08:42,193 with precision down to the millisecond. 171 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:45,680 The problem is, however, 172 00:08:45,704 --> 00:08:48,133 it's not just the brain that's electrically active, 173 00:08:48,157 --> 00:08:50,895 it's also the rest of the body as well as the environment 174 00:08:50,919 --> 00:08:53,633 that contains a lot of electrical activity all the time. 175 00:08:53,657 --> 00:08:55,045 To do my research, 176 00:08:55,069 --> 00:08:58,069 I therefore need to minimize all this noise. 177 00:08:58,411 --> 00:09:01,894 So I ask my participants to do a number of things here. 178 00:09:02,427 --> 00:09:03,586 First off, 179 00:09:03,610 --> 00:09:06,915 I ask them to rest their head in a chin rest, 180 00:09:06,939 --> 00:09:09,360 to avoid too much muscle movement. 181 00:09:09,384 --> 00:09:11,209 I also ask them to, meanwhile, 182 00:09:11,233 --> 00:09:13,379 stare at the center of a computer monitor 183 00:09:13,403 --> 00:09:16,172 to avoid too much eye movements and eye blinks. 184 00:09:16,196 --> 00:09:18,704 And I can't even have swallowing, 185 00:09:18,728 --> 00:09:23,320 so I ask my participants to stick the tongue out of their mouth 186 00:09:23,344 --> 00:09:25,352 over a glass bowl, 187 00:09:25,376 --> 00:09:29,576 and then I constantly let taste stimuli onto the tongue, 188 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:31,704 which then drip off into this bowl, 189 00:09:31,728 --> 00:09:33,212 (Laughter) 190 00:09:33,236 --> 00:09:37,379 and then, just to complete this wonderful picture, 191 00:09:37,403 --> 00:09:39,990 I also provide my participants with a bib, 192 00:09:40,014 --> 00:09:43,117 available in either pink or blue, as they please. 193 00:09:43,141 --> 00:09:47,228 (Laughter) 194 00:09:47,252 --> 00:09:49,366 Looks like a normal eating experience, right? 195 00:09:49,390 --> 00:09:50,540 (Laughter) 196 00:09:51,585 --> 00:09:53,005 No, obviously not. 197 00:09:54,546 --> 00:09:55,895 And worse, 198 00:09:55,919 --> 00:09:59,260 I can't even control what my participants are thinking about, 199 00:09:59,284 --> 00:10:01,395 so I need to repeat this taste procedure 200 00:10:01,419 --> 00:10:02,569 multiple times. 201 00:10:02,958 --> 00:10:05,789 Maybe the first time, they're thinking about the free lunch 202 00:10:05,813 --> 00:10:07,974 that I provide for participating, 203 00:10:07,998 --> 00:10:09,272 or maybe the second time, 204 00:10:09,296 --> 00:10:11,296 they're thinking about Christmas coming up 205 00:10:11,320 --> 00:10:14,220 and what to get for mom this year, you know. 206 00:10:15,109 --> 00:10:19,236 But common for each response is the response to the taste. 207 00:10:19,260 --> 00:10:22,527 So I repeat this taste procedure multiple times. 208 00:10:22,871 --> 00:10:24,720 Sixty, in fact. 209 00:10:25,291 --> 00:10:26,911 And then I average the responses, 210 00:10:26,935 --> 00:10:29,839 because responses unrelated to taste will average out. 211 00:10:30,307 --> 00:10:31,958 And using this method, 212 00:10:31,982 --> 00:10:34,506 we and other labs, 213 00:10:34,530 --> 00:10:38,033 have investigated how long a time it takes from "food lands on our tongue" 214 00:10:38,057 --> 00:10:41,036 until our brain has figured out which taste it's experiencing. 215 00:10:41,639 --> 00:10:44,853 Turns out this occurs within the first already 100 milliseconds, 216 00:10:44,877 --> 00:10:47,853 that's about half a second before we even become aware of it. 217 00:10:48,268 --> 00:10:50,080 And next up, we also investigated 218 00:10:50,104 --> 00:10:53,903 the taste difference between sugar and artificial sweeteners 219 00:10:53,927 --> 00:10:56,203 that in our setup taste extremely similar. 220 00:10:56,563 --> 00:10:58,594 In fact, they tasted so similar 221 00:10:58,618 --> 00:11:02,197 that half my participants could only barely tell the taste apart, 222 00:11:02,221 --> 00:11:04,546 while the other half simply couldn't. 223 00:11:05,015 --> 00:11:06,776 But amazingly, 224 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:09,926 if we looked across the entire group of participants, 225 00:11:09,950 --> 00:11:13,751 we saw that their brains definitely could tell the taste apart. 226 00:11:14,895 --> 00:11:17,754 So with EEG and other brain-scanning devices 227 00:11:17,778 --> 00:11:19,938 and other physiological measures -- 228 00:11:19,962 --> 00:11:21,133 sweat and pupil size -- 229 00:11:21,157 --> 00:11:23,172 we have new gateways to our brain. 230 00:11:23,625 --> 00:11:27,316 Gateways that will help us remove the barrier of the conscious mind 231 00:11:27,340 --> 00:11:29,523 to see through the biases of people 232 00:11:29,547 --> 00:11:32,327 and possibly even capture subconscious taste differences. 233 00:11:32,689 --> 00:11:37,000 And that's because we can now measure people's very first response to food 234 00:11:37,024 --> 00:11:38,841 before they've become conscious of it, 235 00:11:38,865 --> 00:11:42,031 and before they've started rationalizing why they like it or not. 236 00:11:42,476 --> 00:11:44,651 We can measure people's facial expressions, 237 00:11:44,675 --> 00:11:47,172 we can measure where they're looking, 238 00:11:47,196 --> 00:11:49,196 we can measure their sweat response, 239 00:11:49,220 --> 00:11:51,620 we can measure their brain response. 240 00:11:52,030 --> 00:11:54,093 And with all these measures, 241 00:11:54,117 --> 00:11:56,455 we are going to be able to create tastier foods, 242 00:11:56,479 --> 00:11:58,876 because we can measure whether people actually like 243 00:11:58,900 --> 00:12:00,637 that sugar-reduced milkshake. 244 00:12:00,661 --> 00:12:04,764 And we can create healthier foods without compromising taste, 245 00:12:04,788 --> 00:12:07,561 because we can measure the response to different sweeteners 246 00:12:07,585 --> 00:12:10,688 and find the sweetener that gives the response that's more similar 247 00:12:10,712 --> 00:12:12,005 to the response from sugar. 248 00:12:12,029 --> 00:12:14,704 And furthermore, we can just help create healthier foods, 249 00:12:14,728 --> 00:12:17,695 because we can help understand how we actually sense food 250 00:12:17,719 --> 00:12:18,986 in the first place. 251 00:12:19,533 --> 00:12:22,200 Which we know surprisingly little about. 252 00:12:22,589 --> 00:12:25,920 For example, we know that there are those five basic tastes, 253 00:12:25,944 --> 00:12:28,187 but we strongly suspect that there are more, 254 00:12:28,211 --> 00:12:30,910 and in fact, using our EEG setup, 255 00:12:30,934 --> 00:12:33,188 we found evidence that fat, 256 00:12:33,212 --> 00:12:35,799 besides being sensed by its texture and smell, 257 00:12:35,823 --> 00:12:37,092 is also tasted. 258 00:12:37,553 --> 00:12:40,934 Meaning that fat could be this new sixth basic taste. 259 00:12:41,522 --> 00:12:45,879 And if we figure out how our brain recognizes fat and sugar, 260 00:12:45,903 --> 00:12:47,220 and I'm just dreaming here, 261 00:12:47,244 --> 00:12:48,736 but could we then one day 262 00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:52,798 create a milkshake with zero calories that tastes just like the real deal? 263 00:12:54,894 --> 00:12:57,172 Or maybe we figure out that we can't, 264 00:12:57,196 --> 00:12:59,766 because we subconsciously detect calories 265 00:12:59,790 --> 00:13:02,574 via our receptors in our gastrointestinal tract. 266 00:13:03,137 --> 00:13:04,537 The future will show. 267 00:13:05,978 --> 00:13:08,803 Our conscious experience of food 268 00:13:08,827 --> 00:13:13,791 is just the tip of the iceberg of our total sensation of food. 269 00:13:13,815 --> 00:13:16,122 And by studying this total sensation, 270 00:13:16,146 --> 00:13:19,022 conscious and subconscious alike, 271 00:13:19,046 --> 00:13:23,555 I truly believe that we can make tastier and healthier foods for all. 272 00:13:23,579 --> 00:13:24,730 Thank you. 273 00:13:24,754 --> 00:13:29,920 (Applause)