ABSTRACT

New approaches and adaptations of signal detection to difference testing will be considered. There are at least two completely different types of sensory evaluation: Sensory Evaluation I and Sensory Evaluation II. For such an analysis, every precaution is taken to assure that the human judge is working with maximum sensitivity and reliability. For Sensory Evaluation II, a sample or panel of typical consumers must try to determine whether they can distinguish differences between the different foods. It is important to remember that the panel of judges constitutes a sample from which inferences are made about the population. They are no longer instruments for testing the samples of food. Some consumer testing would then have to be done to determine whether typical consumers will accept or buy the food. The psychophysicist uses scaling to understand the relationship between physical intensity and perceived intensity of a stimulus.