*2.4. Test Environments*

As shown in Figure 1, five test environments (traditional booths, bright-restaurant, dark-restaurant, bright-VR, and dark-VR) were used for the tasting experiences of the wine. Traditional booths (traditional sensory evaluation environment) consisted of isolated individual booths located in the sensory laboratory facilities at the University of Melbourne, Australia (Figure 1a). The dimensions of the sensory testing booths were 1.5 m (width) × 2.1 m (height) with a worktop used for placing samples and questionnaires. The sensory booths were illuminated with light emitting diode (LED) light (configured with white color; RGB = 255, 255, 255). The temperature of the sensory room was set at 25 ◦C. The VR environments used in this study (restaurants with bright and dark ambient) were both obtained from YouTube (Google LLC, San Bruno, CA, USA), and were selected from a pool of 10 VR environments (YouTube) in preliminary focus group discussions (*N* = 6) (bright-VR contextual environment (https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8iqpLN-YIE), and dark-VR contextual environment (https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=2zYWdAqmxBw)) The "real" restaurant environments were assembled to create two restaurant conditions for this study (bright and dark conditions). Before the testing session, wine samples coded with three-digit random numbers and questionnaires (paper ballots) were placed on the table for the participants.

Consumer tests in the "real" restaurant contexts were conducted in two separate rooms having bright and dark environments (Figure 1e,f, respectively). In the bright-restaurant environment, participants were seated in restaurant-type tables that were decorated with a vase with flowers and a wooden table with bread. In the bright-restaurant room, there was a 60 inch TV screen (Samsung, Seoul, Korea) that displayed a photo of a wine cabinet with a wide variety of wines. In the dark-restaurant environment, participants were seated in a dark room that was illuminated by artificial LED tea-lights (Kmart, Melbourne, VIC, Australia), and decorated with flowers and plates. In the dark-restaurant room, there was also a 60 inch TV screen that displayed a photo of a dark-restaurant room.

The consumer test sessions under the VR environments were conducted in a private and isolated focus-group room (Figure 1b). The VR environments were generated by an Oculus Go all-in-one VR headset with a controller (Facebook Technologies, LLC, Menlo Park, CA, USA), which provided the dynamic visual scenarios (Figure 1c,d). Throughout the VR testing process, a testing supervisor was always present to help the subjects wear the VR headsets. After the tasting of each wine sample, participants were asked to remove their VR headsets and answer the questions on the paper ballots. The bright-restaurant VR environment was a restaurant-type room illuminated with bright lights. The subjects in this environment tasted the wines in a simulated restaurant bar, facing a cabinet that has a wide variety of wines (Figure 1c). During the tasting experience, participants were able to see, hear, and feel the activities of other persons dining in the restaurant. The background noise for this environment included low-pitched conversations from other persons in the restaurant. On the other hand, the dark-restaurant VR was placed in a restaurant illuminated with dim lights with no background music. The restaurant had several tables with seated persons that were having low-pitched conversations. Table lamps with yellow lights were placed in several places in the restaurant. Participants in this VR environment were placed in one table at the corner of the restaurant (Figure 1d).
