Research

How people mentally represent their body appearance (i.e., body image perception - BIP) does not always match their actual body. Recent works in HCI showed that technology can be used to change people's BIP through visual, tactile, and auditory stimulation. However, an important sense that has been largely unexplored is that of smell, which is surprising given the ubiquity of smell (i.e., scents surround us even if we are not aware of them). We want to investigate the relationship between scent and BIP in order to identify possible recommendations that will help in the treatment of patients with eating, but also generically, BIP disorders. Moreover, the project expected outcome will not only benefit people with body misperception disease, but will also advance future research to create novel augmented and embodied experiences and improve interactive clothes and wearable technology.