Oral tribology: bridging the gap between physical measurements and sensory experience

• Soft tribology provides insights into oral tribology.
• Tribology is a ‘system’ property and not a physical property of food.
• The tribological measurement system must be chosen carefully.
• Bridges between tribology measurement and sensory percepts are emerging.
• Advances in oral mimetic system design are required.

Soft-tribology is emerging as an important field of research for quantifying the physics occurring during oral tribological processes. In a food oral processing context, recent research indicates that tribology measurements are providing insights into several texture-related sensory percepts, but obtaining quantitative empirical relationships between the two is challenging. Choosing a physiologically relevant tribological ‘system’ is paramount to the successful application of tribology as an indicator for texture perception; the choice of instrument, surfaces and model food system, as well as the role of saliva, should be carefully considered. Tribology and sensory perception are affected by multiple physico-chemical properties, and therefore integrative approaches that combine tribology with other characterisation techniques are necessary for mechanistic understanding on their inter-relationship.

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