Sensory Jobs

• The senses and brain processing associated with consumer perception of the sensory characteristics of food. Psychological and physiological effects and how they interfere with sensory measurement: demand characteristics, suggestion, sensory adaptation, fatiguing. How the brain protects itself from information overload. Illusions and misperceptions How they can affect consumer choice.

• Applications and goals of sensory evaluation, consumer testing and psychophysics in industrial and research settings. How the methods from one area can be wrongly applied to another.
  

• Why there is more than one type of sensory evaluation. How it can be used in quality assurance, new product development, storage, packaging, reformulation and processing studies as well as basic research. Analytical Type I and market-oriented Type II testing. Possible shortcuts. How does this relate to consumer choice.
• The testing environment: how the right testing conditions control bias. Use and abuse of sensory testing.

• How well can consumers discriminate small changes in the sensory characteristics of foods and other products? What tests should be used to measure this? An examination of difference tests. What is response bias? Why is it essential to control response bias in difference testing? The strategies used to circumvent the problem: forced-choice procedures and signal detection measures, beta and tau criteria. How a slight change in the instructions can ruin a test.

• Types of forced-choice difference tests. How they solve the problem of response bias: paired comparison, triangle, 3-AFC, duo-trio, dual standard, tetrad, octad, two-out-of -five etc.

• A-Not-A, same-different, 4 IAX tests. Why the A-Not-A and same-different tests have inherent response bias. How inherent response bias can be avoided. Why the same-different method can be the test of the future for consumer discrimination measures. Solutions to problems.

• Preference tests. The 'no preference' option. How to get round inherent response bias with a placebo. Practical applications. Many possible forms of analysis for preference tests. Other methods of avoiding response bias. Ongoing research.

• Why judges perform better on some tests than others. An introduction to Thurstonian models, inadequacies of binomial statistics, beta binomial test, d''analysis of difference and preference tests, statistical power of tests.

• Sequencing effects on sensitivity, S.S.A. analyses and effects of memory.
• Appropriate tests for analytical difference testing and for testing consumer discrimination. Test sensitivity, most sensitive tests, warmed-up paired comparisons, Why consumers might not need the most sensitive test.

• Application of difference and preference tests in an industrial setting: testing reality. Home use, central location etc.Getting qualitative data at the same time as quantitative data: application of psychophysical techniques----Estimation of population parameters from sample values.

• Signal detection strategies for getting around response bias. Hits, misses, false alarms and correct rejections-- ROC analyses, d',' P(A) computations . Testing assumptions. Practical applications-Introduction to R-Index ananlyses. Introduction to scaling. Nature of numbers. Goals of scaling.

• The properties of numerical estimation. Scaling methods, category scales, line scales, magnitude estimation, time-intensity, other scales, ranking, two stage ranking, rank-rating methods and effects of memory.

• Hedonic scales, just right scales and centering bias. Alternatives: hedonic ranking with R-Index analysis.

• Why the numbers from these scaling techniques are not proper numbers. End effects, anchoring. How long should your scale be when testing consumers ?. Why data from scaling with consumers is relative, not absolute. Consequences of consumers using relative scaling

• How to analyze numerical data from scaling techniques. Why this breaks basic statistical assumptions. What you can do about it. Thurstonian and signal detection approaches.

• Common uses and abuses of scaling. Badly designed studies. What is the best way of getting numbers from consumers?

7.15pm Course dinner

• Descriptive analysis and sorting techniques: Flavour Profiling, QDA, Spectrum and sorting, QFP, PAA, Free Choice Profiling, Procrustes Analysis, etc. What is their relevance to consumer choice? Inputs to product optimization.

• How concept formation relates to consumer categorization. Practical applications. Measuring abstract concepts for marketing.

• Methods and requirements for product optimisation. New techniques: Drivers of Liking, Landscape Segmentation Analysis, Applications to a company portfolio. Introduction of new products in the market.

• Problem solving; Attendees will be able to test their knowledge on many techniques using software prepared for the course. This will be supervised by Hal MacFie while Professor O'Mahony will conduct a series of confidential one -on-one consultancies to address specific problems raised by attendees. These can be booked before or during the course.

About the Course Venue:

Lobby	Rest Area
Email Area	Training Room

Close proximity to hotels, public transportation, and points of interest such as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island makes the computer facility a great location

To pay your registration fee by credit or debit card on-line please click the appropriate button: Refunds will be at the discretion of Dr Halliday MacFie. -WorldPay is a Secure Site-