Food presented in a virtual reality (VR虚拟现实) environment causes the same emotional responses as real food. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access（开放存取，开架阅读） journal Annals of General Psychiatry¹ compared the responses of people with anorexia²（厌食） and bulimia（易饿病） , and a control group, to the virtual and real-life snacks, suggesting that virtual food can be used for the evaluation³ and treatment of eating disorders⁵. Alessandra Gorini from the Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy, worked with an international team of researchers to compare the effects of the exposure to real food, virtual food and photographs of food in a sample of patients affected⁶ by eating disorders. She said, "Though preliminary, our data show that virtual stimuli⁷（刺激） are as effective as real ones, and more effective than static（静态的） pictures, in generating emotional responses in eating disorder⁴ patients".

The 10 anorexic, 10 bulimic（贪食症患者） and 10 control participants, all women, were initially⁸ shown a series of 6 real high-calorie foods placed on a table in front of them. Their heart rate and skin conductance（皮肤电传导） , as well as their psychological stress were measured during the exposure. This process was then repeated with a slideshow of the same foods, and a VR trip into a computer-generated diner where they could interact with the virtual version of the same 6 items. The participants' level of stress was statistically⁹ identical whether in virtual reality or real exposure.

Speaking about the results, Gorini said, "Since real and virtual exposure elicit¹⁰（抽出，引起） a comparable level of stress, higher than the one elicited¹¹ by static pictures, we may eventually see VR being used to screen, evaluate, and treat the emotional reactions provoked（激起，挑衅） by specific stimuli in patients affected by different psychological disorders".