Chapter List

1 Introduction

Perception is the objective achievement of acquiring knowledge about the environment through the senses. Therefore, measuring a consumer's perception of the eating quality of a sample of a food requires the scientific use of information produced by the eater to recover sensed information generated by the food material.

This information-transmitting performance by an individual consumer can be indicated by selecting foods for eating, whether at the table, in the kitchen, from the menu at an eating place, or off the shelves in a shop. However, by themselves these choices among foods tell us nothing about what in the foods was perceived that produced the observed selection: in order to study perception, there must also be evidence that distinguishes among the many possibilities of stimulation to the senses from the material. That is, the influential physico-chemical characteristics of the available foods have to be known before consumers' choices among foods and their expectations about food quality can be used to measure their perceptual achievements. ^{1 3}

Thus, sensory description is not the...