HOW PSYCHOPHYSICS AND NEUROPHYSIOLOGY CAN IMPROVE OUR FOOD CHOICES
If we could trust flavour as a guide to a healthy diet, the world would be a happier place, and probably without the endless fight between Atkins and Zone diet fans. Unfortunately things aren’t that easy. Our taste for food depends on a complex combination of factors such as appearance, texture, odour, pungency and our “breast-fed infant through to early childhood” times, when we were basically forming the basis for our food habits without being aware of it. Famous for being one of the initiators and major contributors to the field of molecular gastronomy, Per Møller, Professor at the University of Copenhagen, where he directs a Master’s-level course on Food Choice and Acceptance, and editor-in-chief of Flavour, a multi-disciplinary journal that focuses on all aspects of flavour, analyses our senses, food sensation, reward and appetite under a holistic approach that includes psychophysics, neurophysiology, neuropsychology and neuroeconomics. At Falling Walls, he will provide a unique chance to understand what our relationship with food is based on, how memory of odours and flavours are connected to specific critical periods of our growth, and what triggers choice and consumption.