TY - JOUR
T1 - Idiographic duo–trio tests using a constant-reference based on preference of each consumer
T2 - Sample presentation sequence in difference test can be customized for individual consumers to reduce error
AU - Kim, Min A.
AU - Sim, Hye Min
AU - Lee, Hye Seong
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (No. 2012R1A1A1001768, No. 2015R1A1A1A05001170).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2016/11/1
Y1 - 2016/11/1
N2 - As reformulations and processing changes are increasingly needed in the food industry to produce healthier, more sustainable, and cost effective products while maintaining superior quality, reliable measurements of consumers' sensory perception and discrimination are becoming more critical. Consumer discrimination methods using a preferred-reference duo–trio test design have been shown to be effective in improving the discrimination performance by customizing sample presentation sequences. However, this design can add complexity to the discrimination task for some consumers, resulting in more errors in sensory discrimination. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of different types of test instructions using the preference-reference duo–trio test design where a paired-preference test is followed by 6 repeated preferred-reference duo–trio tests, in comparison to the analytical method using the balanced-reference duo–trio. Analyses of d' estimates (product-related measure) and probabilistic sensory discriminators in momentary numbers of subjects showing statistical significance (subject-related measure) revealed that only preferred-reference duo–trio test using affective reference-framing, either by providing no information about the reference or information on a previously preferred sample, improved the sensory discrimination more than the analytical method. No decrease in discrimination performance was observed with any type of instruction, confirming that consumers could handle the test methods. These results suggest that when repeated tests are feasible, using the affective discrimination method would be operationally more efficient as well as ecologically more reliable for measuring consumers' sensory discrimination ability.
AB - As reformulations and processing changes are increasingly needed in the food industry to produce healthier, more sustainable, and cost effective products while maintaining superior quality, reliable measurements of consumers' sensory perception and discrimination are becoming more critical. Consumer discrimination methods using a preferred-reference duo–trio test design have been shown to be effective in improving the discrimination performance by customizing sample presentation sequences. However, this design can add complexity to the discrimination task for some consumers, resulting in more errors in sensory discrimination. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of different types of test instructions using the preference-reference duo–trio test design where a paired-preference test is followed by 6 repeated preferred-reference duo–trio tests, in comparison to the analytical method using the balanced-reference duo–trio. Analyses of d' estimates (product-related measure) and probabilistic sensory discriminators in momentary numbers of subjects showing statistical significance (subject-related measure) revealed that only preferred-reference duo–trio test using affective reference-framing, either by providing no information about the reference or information on a previously preferred sample, improved the sensory discrimination more than the analytical method. No decrease in discrimination performance was observed with any type of instruction, confirming that consumers could handle the test methods. These results suggest that when repeated tests are feasible, using the affective discrimination method would be operationally more efficient as well as ecologically more reliable for measuring consumers' sensory discrimination ability.
KW - Consumer discrimination test
KW - Idiographic sensory test
KW - Preferred-reference duo–trio test
KW - Probabilistic sensory discriminators
KW - Sample presentation sequence effects
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84994520318&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.foodres.2016.08.036
DO - 10.1016/j.foodres.2016.08.036
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84994520318
SN - 0963-9969
VL - 89
SP - 454
EP - 462
JO - Food Research International
JF - Food Research International
ER -