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Measurement of consumers’ sensory discrimination and preference: Efficiency of preference-difference test utilizing the 3-point preference test precedes the same-different test

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Abstract

In fast moving consumer goods industries, effective and robust sensory discrimination and preference methods need to achieve various business objectives, such as product reformulation. A new preference-difference test was designed in this study as more effective and reliable method. In this method, 3-point paired-preference test was performed before conducting same-different test. The performance of new method was compared with performances of difference-preference test and conventional pairedpreference test. Each of 256 female consumers participated in all three test methods in a counterbalanced order for discriminating two types of strawberry flavored carbonated drinks. McNemar test and Thurstonian modeling/signal detection theory (SDT) were used to compare the effectiveness of same-different tests. SDT analysis and a significance test using the concept of ‘identicality norm’ were applied to compare robustness of preference tests. The results of these analyses indicated that preference-difference test could not only provide better discrimination but also showed more robust preference results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, 120-750, Korea

    In-Ah Kim, Ji-Young Yoon & Hye-Seong Lee

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  1. In-Ah Kim
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  2. Ji-Young Yoon
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  3. Hye-Seong Lee
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Correspondence to Hye-Seong Lee.

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Kim, IA., Yoon, JY. & Lee, HS. Measurement of consumers’ sensory discrimination and preference: Efficiency of preference-difference test utilizing the 3-point preference test precedes the same-different test. Food Sci Biotechnol 24, 1355–1362 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-015-0174-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10068-015-0174-0

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