Guideline for measuring food choice behaviour in reconstructed and virtual environments

Task 6.3 aims to document existing methods based on virtual environments and their relevant applications; then to harmonise the conditions under which they can be efficiently implemented (including which consumer segments they can be applied to). Reconstructed reality, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, online environments (such as virtual supermarkets), and immersion rooms are technological applications that have quickly developed in recent years in order to create an environment to study food choices which is as close as possible to the real environment, but more easily controlled. They are a bridge between experimental and real-life studies but it is not yet known whether they best represent experimental or real-life studies. Moreover, the conditions under which virtual environments better capture consumers’ actual food choice behaviours still need to be documented. This will be done by using the infrastructures available within the consortium, many of described in WP 10/TNA1 to WP18TNA9. Results will be evaluated to check how these approaches can be harmonised and integrated to the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform (WP2) and in WP5 and WP7.