An analytical and integrative approach to sensory evaluation of foods

Total sensory evaluation of foods involves at least four senses each of which may include one to many distinct attributes of quality. Thus it is necessary to test for the various significant attributes separately before arriving at a total quality assessment. Sensory evaluation may be performed directly by the use of the “human instrument”, i.e. taste panel, or indirectly by the use of objective physical‐chemical tests which must be validated by demonstrated high correlation with taste panel responses. For determining differences, panelists should be trained. For consumer preference, untrained panels representative of the target population must be employed. In either case, scalar, variables, rather than attributes data should be utilised for maximum efficiency (power). The sample number ratio (s.n.r.) is presented as a technique for measuring the relative efficiency of taste‐testing procedures. The contribution of specific attributes to total sensory quality may be calculated by the use of multiple regression analysis where total quality is the dependent variable and the specific attributes of quality are the independent variables. The independent variables contributing significantly to predictability of total quality are retained in the equation and the others are dropped. An example of this procedure, using subjective and objective procedures is presented.