MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience
The integration of technology into cooking and eating routines often leads to distractions, hindering mindfulness. Mindful eating involves awareness of the present moment and attention to sensory experiences. While mindful eating has been promoted, mindful cooking remains underexplored. As conversat...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2025-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Computer Science |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2025.1566940/full |
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| author | Mario O. Parra Jesus Favela Luis A. Castro |
| author_facet | Mario O. Parra Jesus Favela Luis A. Castro |
| author_sort | Mario O. Parra |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The integration of technology into cooking and eating routines often leads to distractions, hindering mindfulness. Mindful eating involves awareness of the present moment and attention to sensory experiences. While mindful eating has been promoted, mindful cooking remains underexplored. As conversational agents become increasingly popular in diverse fields like education, healthcare, and e-commerce, we are leveraging this technology to promote mindfulness practices that enhance the cooking and eating experience. This paper introduces MyndFood, a conversational agent designed to promote mindful cooking and eating. We describe the development process of MyndFood and present the outcomes from a user experiment involving 40 participants who engaged with the system while preparing sushi. The study employed a between-subjects design featuring two conditions for the agent: mindful and non-mindful. Results indicate that participants in the mindful condition experienced greater enjoyment and heightened food awareness compared to those in the non-mindful condition. These findings suggest that conversational agents can enhance hedonic experiences and improve food awareness by promoting mindful practices. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-054afcad7fa34ef8b7c485611facae5f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2624-9898 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Computer Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-054afcad7fa34ef8b7c485611facae5f2025-08-20T03:53:38ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Computer Science2624-98982025-04-01710.3389/fcomp.2025.15669401566940MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experienceMario O. Parra0Jesus Favela1Luis A. Castro2Computer Science Department, CICESE, Ensenada, Baja California, MexicoComputer Science Department, CICESE, Ensenada, Baja California, MexicoDepartment of Computing and Design, Sonora Institute of Technology (ITSON), Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, MexicoThe integration of technology into cooking and eating routines often leads to distractions, hindering mindfulness. Mindful eating involves awareness of the present moment and attention to sensory experiences. While mindful eating has been promoted, mindful cooking remains underexplored. As conversational agents become increasingly popular in diverse fields like education, healthcare, and e-commerce, we are leveraging this technology to promote mindfulness practices that enhance the cooking and eating experience. This paper introduces MyndFood, a conversational agent designed to promote mindful cooking and eating. We describe the development process of MyndFood and present the outcomes from a user experiment involving 40 participants who engaged with the system while preparing sushi. The study employed a between-subjects design featuring two conditions for the agent: mindful and non-mindful. Results indicate that participants in the mindful condition experienced greater enjoyment and heightened food awareness compared to those in the non-mindful condition. These findings suggest that conversational agents can enhance hedonic experiences and improve food awareness by promoting mindful practices.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2025.1566940/fullconversational agentscomputational commensalitydigital commensalitymindful cookinghuman-computer interaction |
| spellingShingle | Mario O. Parra Jesus Favela Luis A. Castro MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience Frontiers in Computer Science conversational agents computational commensality digital commensality mindful cooking human-computer interaction |
| title | MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| title_full | MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| title_fullStr | MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| title_full_unstemmed | MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| title_short | MyndFood: a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| title_sort | myndfood a conversational agent for enhancing the cooking and eating experience |
| topic | conversational agents computational commensality digital commensality mindful cooking human-computer interaction |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2025.1566940/full |
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