Eric Gevaert
Virtual reality is so passé. We've now entered the era of the virtual chocolate cookie. And researchers are setting their sights on dieters.
Computer specialists at the University of Tokyo has developed goggles that change a plain biscuit into a chocolate cookie in the eyes of its users, Agence France-Presse reports.
Cameras in the goggles linked to a computer "see" the biscuit. The computer changes the image into a cookie, and scent bottles in the users' headgear give off the essence of chocolate. Amazingly, according to a professor at the university's graduate school of information science and technology, 80 per cent of users taste chocolate, even though senses other than taste are being manipulated.
It's perfect for dieters, right? The aim is to fool yourself by thinking you're cheating – because in the twisted logic of dieting, a diet is never really about self-discipline, but about self-deception. It's easier to knowingly trick yourself than to knowingly force yourself into a strict regimen of bland food, exercise and whatever other form of deprivation. The goggles can also enlarge the size of the cookie in the user's eyes, while everything else remains normal size. So the eater can be tricked into believing they are eating a much, much larger cookie. Volunteers at the school ate 10 per cent less when tricked into thinking the cookies were 50 per cent larger, the researchers found.
If users can be so easily tricked, is this the panacea dieters have been waiting for?
Is a virtual chocolate cookie such a bad thing, when the real thing is so fraught with calories and guilt?