Eat based on how you feel
ONE of the toughest questions to answer has to be “What to eat?” It has probably ruined friendships, created rifts in relationships and made one go crazy coming up with a solution.
Taking all that into account and hoping to help its users make up their mind is the IPC Shopping Centre app, which provides shoppers with suggestions on places to dine and drink at its premises.
The app works with music streaming app Spotify to create The Mood Menu which analyses the users’ recent playback history to track their current mood. The users’ moods are then matched with suitable flavours and the app suggests several dining outlets for the users to choose.
For example, if The Mood Menu feels that you are sleepy it suggests that you should look for food that are rich, fatty and less sour or if you’re sad to look for something sweet.
The Mood Menu algorithm was created with psychology insights from Cornell Univeristy Assistant Professor Robin Dando, who had a paper published on the topic in the scientific journal Appetite in 2015.
According to Prof Dando’s study, human moods have the ability to inhibit or accentuate sweet, salty, bitter, sour, or umami (savoury) flavours.
“Our taste perception can be modulated by a variety of factors, and this includes our emotional response to pleasant or unpleasant real-life events. For instance, we were able to show that positive emotions go along with an enhancement of our sweet tooth, while negative emotions occur alongside heightened perception of sour tastes. This might be the reason why some of us go through emotional eating,” he said in a press release.
Ikea South-East Asia head of marketing–shopping centre Andrew Yeoh added: “We hope that this solution provides our shoppers with a more pleasant and delightful shopping and dining experience. After all, it is part of our vision to create a better everyday life for our shoppers and visitors.”
The IPC Shopping Centre app also contains other useful info such as store guide, parking information, latest promotions, as well as members-only promotions for those who sign up for a profile within the application.
The app is free on iOS and Android.