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6. Interpretation of results
Sensory evaluation is a group activity, even if the activity of the solitary expert falls within the scope of this discipline if he or she complies with a certain number of the technique's founding rules, such as the anonymity of samples. The reason why the moderator addresses a group of subjects rather than a single subject is that he knows that there are differences between subjects and wants to take this into account. These differences are obvious in the field of preferences, but they also exist in the discriminative and quantitative fields. For many years, these differences were considered to be a flaw: the group leader would try to eliminate them, and the writer of the written report would try to hide them. But this perspective is erroneous: inter-individual differences are a rich source of sensory evaluation, even if they obviously complicate the analysis, interpretation and extrapolation...
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Interpretation of results
Bibliography
References
Standardization. Accreditation
Association Française de Normalisation AFNOR
The latest edition of all existing standards for the sensory evaluation of food products:
Sensory Analysis (651 p.) dates from January 2002.
The most important documents include :
- Analyse sensorielle. Méthodologie. Directives générales pour la réalisation d'épreuves hédoniques en laboratoire...
Organizations
Research organizations
In addition to the ACTIA centers, which develop applied research activities in the field of sensory metrology alongside their activities as service providers, most agri-food schools, notably Enitia (Nantes), Ensbana (Dijon) and Ensia (Massy), have a sensory evaluation research group.
At INRA, the most active laboratories in the sensory field are certainly those at...
Software
Leading sensory data capture software includes :
Compusense Inc. (Canada) http://www.compusense.com
Fizz (Biosystèmes) (France) http://www.biosystemes.com
Tastel, ABT Informatique (France) http://www.abt-sensory-analysis.com
Manufacturers
Grosseron sensory evaluation booths (Nantes).
Sentosphère (Paris) scent boxes.
Éditions Jean Lenoir (Carnoux-en-Provence)
Les Maisons du goût, Pôle Alimentec (Bourg-en-Bresse)
Burghart (Germany) http://www.bughart.net
This company offers a set of "Sniffin'sticks" to identify anosmics and hyposmics...
Service providers
Numerous organizations offer custom assessments in the discriminative, descriptive and hedonic fields.
A number of these centers, which come under the auspices of technical centers or CRITTs, are members of ACTIA (Paris). ACTIA has drawn up a Guide to Good Practice (see above) for clients of ACTIA centers who "sell" sensory evaluation and who undertake to comply...
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