Correlatos eletrofisiológicos da percepção de jovens adultos à exposição a vídeos de Mukbang ASMR

Abstract

Food-related content disseminated across various social media platforms impacts population behavior and eating habits. Mukbang is one such content and consists of videos in which an individual records themselves consuming large quantities of food in front of a camera, eliciting diverse reactions from viewers. Although it serves as a form of entertainment for many, Mukbang has been associated with increased food consumption, obesity, distortions in the relationship between food and the body, and eating disorders. Despite existing evidence regarding the motivations and repercussions of exposure to this type of content, limited attention has been directed toward investigating its neural correlates, as well as the physiological sensations and emotions experienced during exposure to these stimuli. In this context, the present study examined the modulation of cerebral oscillations in the alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands across frontal, parietal, and occipital regions during exposure to Mukbang ASMR videos using electroencephalography (EEG). A total of 40 individuals aged between 18 and 29 years participated in the study. Participants viewed two Mukbang videos (sweet and savory food) and one control video and subsequently completed a questionnaire comprising 24 statements addressing sensations evoked by the stimuli. Subjective data indicated predominantly ambivalent experiences, with a tendency toward positive evaluations and high interindividual variability. The most consistent differences emerged in comparisons between experimental events rather than between groups defined by reported subjective experience. The savory food video more robustly modulated high-frequency bands (gamma), exhibiting higher values across different cortical regions compared to the sweet and control videos. Additionally, gamma-band activity showed a significant predominance in frontal regions relative to parietal and occipital regions across all three videos, suggesting greater involvement of anterior areas in multimodal stimulus integration. Collectively, these findings indicate that Mukbang videos may recruit broad patterns of neural excitation, regardless of the subjective valence attributed by participants. These results expand the understanding of how highly complex audiovisual food stimuli influence neural activity, contributing to the literature on sensory processing and eating behavior in contemporary digital environments.