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Figure 1. Examples of activity/bite-force relations in two selected patients with the activity used as the independent variable. Fest and Fme denote estimated and measured chewing forces. Patient A: Working-side masseter (mass. ws) showing a strong correlation in clenching on the bite-fork (r = 0.96) but a weak one in chewing (r = 0.6). The mean activity/bite-force ratio was higher in chewing (0.45 µV/N) than in clenching (0.23 µV/N), resulting in overestimation of chewing force (613 N) when the mean chewing activity (128 µV) was substituted into the activity/bite-force regression of clenching. Dashed arrows elucidate the estimation procedure. Balancing-side masseter (mass. bs) showed good correlations and almost equal activity/bite-force ratios (0.41 µV/N, 0.39 µV/N) in both biting tasks. Hence, the estimated chewing force deviated by only about 5% from the measured force. Patient B: Weak correlations in chewing because of missing small forces. However, in both muscles, activities per unit bite-force in the 2 biting tasks were similar, resulting in fairly correct force estimations.
