Visualization of happiness elicited taking a food using near infra-red spectroscopy
The purpose in this study is visualizing brain functional activities during taking a favorite food using Near Infra-Red Spectroscopy (NIRS). Many appointments and systems that aim to provide happiness for improving quality of life in the users have been constructed. The creations must integrate a common and plausible happiness indicator into their module; however, almost all of them do not have the indicator because constructing a common happiness indicator is very difficult. To solve this issue, we visualize happiness with hemal indices that would reflect well-known relation between happiness and brain functional activities. Before this study, we employed questionnaire to define the meaning of happiness. Thus, we measured hemal indices during taking a favorite (sweet/salty) food; people feel happiness in the state, and resting state by using NIRS. In the analysis part, first-order auto-regression and t-test are employed for modeling of hemodynamic changing and visualizing brain functional activities. As a result, 11 and 15 points on the occipital region show significant differences when the subjects take a sweet or salty food. The results would contribute to construct plausible happiness indicator.