Report from Eurosense 2020

E3S Eurosense Student Award – Naomi Muñoz Vilches

Although this year the 9th European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research (Eurosense 2020) was held online due to covid-19, the quality of the speakers and the content was the highest, and the attendees reached the 700 delegates.

This year Eurosense was focused on giving us “a sense of innovation”, certainly, this title made honor to the conference. I felt very inspired by the key speakers, they talked about the future of sensory and consumer science. I was especially triggered by John Ennis who talked about how technology will transform the way we conceive sensory and consumer research in the fourth industrial revolution. Who also talked about technology, and specifically about the multisensory world of Human-Computer interaction, was Mariana Obrist. I’m amazed by how fast sensory and consumer science is developing and adapting to these new needs. The covid-19 pandemic is also changing the way we work, it forced us to include (even more) technology in our daily work life, the big technology-driven change, the fourth industrial revolution, is already here to change our lives.

Related to my personal work, I have presented part of my PhD work in the role of mental simulation in desire for food and choice. I had the honour of having an oral presentation in the parallel session: consumer science.

My presentation was entitled “tell me what you imagine and I will tell you what you want: the role of mental simulation in desire and food choice”. This work is published in Food Quality and Preference, and it was selected as one of the winners of the E3S Eurosense Student Awards. I am very honoured to have received this award and I want to thank the European Sensory Society (E3S) for it. It keeps the motivation up, and it is reassuring that the scientific community appreciates my contributions to consumer science.

All in all, this conference for me was very inspiring, what it stays in my mind is the sense of innovation in three main areas: healthy eating (especially in children), including technology in sensory and consumer science, and the most interesting to me, the role of cognitive science in influencing appetite and food choice (Suzanne Higgs).

Finally, thanks for the amazing and high-quality work from the organising team, especially because they confronted a pandemic, which carried many changes and obstacles that needed a quick adaptation. You certainly made the best of it and turn out difficulties into opportunities. For example, many people could attend from the comfort of their homes.

I’m looking forward to presenting in EUROSENSE 2022 in Finland!

Naomí Muñoz Vilches

 

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