Sensory science

Definition: Sensory analysis is a scientific discipline used to evoke, measure,

analyse and interpret those characteristics of food that are perceived by the
senses: taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing.
Origin: Post World War II Food restrictions until 1955. After that, food quality was prioritised above
quantity.
1960 British Standard Institute set standards for sensory analysis.
1970 Frozen, partially processed, new food products were made.
Increased competition in food industry made sensory analysis a central tool.
Complexity of decision making process:
-Evolution from pure instinct to a mixture of sensorial and conscious rationality
-Past conceptions: Descartes, Plato thought that humans are rational, deliberate
and logical creatures. (WRONG)
Actually, early emotions gave way to more rational thoughts, and now they are
interweaved.
-Cooking served as an evolutionary fast-track tool (development of frontal
cortex).
-David Hume: Reason is the slave of passions (positive emotion, negative
emotion)
Orbitofrontal cortex (region of brain involved in emotion and decision making)
-Implications for sensory science: peoples decisions not very defining, hard to
study, etc.
Senses: Sight (colour, texture, shape), touch (mechanical, tactile), hearing
(intensity, quality), smell (flavour, aroma), taste (sweet, sour, etc).
-Myth: isolated regions of the tongue detect certain tastes
Complexity of integrated senses: Environmental factors too
- hot chocolate tastes better in orange cups
-food taste better using heavy cutlery (and colour of the plate)
-Sense stimulating cutlery
Considerations: According to new knowledge of decision making process,
interaction of senses, environmental conditions
-Preference tests: 'Like or dislike if customers intend to use the product, if one
product is preferred over another (acceptance or consumer test)
-Difference test: detect small difference in foods (is there a difference? Does the
consumer detect the difference? How can the difference be described?)
-Descriptive tests: Perceived sensory qualities of the products (what does it taste
like? What are its perceived sensory attributes? How does the packaging,
processing, storage affect the sensory quality?)
Data analysis: -identify patterns in data, express it so that similarities and
differences are highlighted
*PCA (Principle Component Analysis): compress the data (reduce # dimensions)
without losing too much data
-In difference and descriptive tests, can assess panelists answers (detect
abnormal patterns eg. Colour of apple with colour blind people) and filter those
ones

Biometrics
-Preference, difference, descriptive tests dont reflect unconscious processes
-Using video-tracking, can record response time, pupil movement and dilation,
posture, facial expression, heart rate
-Hero camera 3: bicycle helmet with infrared temperature sensor and electronics:
measure H.B, body temperature changes, pupil dilation