An important dogma in sensory science is the difference between analytical and hedonic evaluation. Analytical testing refers to the objective perception of the intensity or the presence of a sensation, while hedonic testing refers to the subjective evaluation of a sensation, for example, liking or palatability. This difference is critical when talking about differences in perception and liking. These concepts are often used interchangeably; however, these concepts have distinctly different meanings. One may perceive something as extremely sweet, but that does not necessarily mean that it is very much liked. This is maybe even more clear if we think about bitterness. A high perceived bitterness is often not liked very much. Especially, if you are interpreting data or designing your own sensory research it is critical to think about this. What is measured? If you are interpreting data: did people evaluate the food analytically, or did they give their hedonic evaluation? And when you set up your own research: do you want to know how food is perceived, or do you want to know if it is liked or preferred to other foods? This determines the formulation of your question and the method you will choose in your research.

Watch the knowledge clip to learn more about the concepts of analytical perception and hedonic judgment and why it is so important to distinguish these two. In Table 1, you will find the most important differences between analytical perception and hedonic judgment.

Linking analytical and hedonic information

An often-made mistake is that differences in hedonic attributes (liking or acceptance of a product) are due to the scoring of analytical characteristics in the same test. For example, when the outcomes of testing the sensory properties of two chocolate bars are as shown in the table:

Please note that the intensity of a taste and the hedonic value do not have a linear relationship; a low sweet taste can be judged as unpleasant, but a high sweet taste as well. The outcome of the data above can be described as follows: Chocolate bar 1 had a higher rating for liking and sweetness, and a lower rating for hardness compared to Chocolate bar 2.

Example – CATA

In some tests, analytical questions can be combined with hedonic questions. One example of this is in the ‘Check All That Apply (CATA)’ test. This test is widely used in the industry, as both untrained consumers and trained panelists can be used.

The first task is to check all the sensory characteristics that apply to a product. Sensory characteristics are chosen based on the associations that consumers might have with the product. When tasting the samples, consumers are asked to check all the characteristics they find applicable to the sample. An example of such a test can look like:

The result of this test will show how many consumers use each term to describe the product. Out of this frequency, the relevance of each characteristic for the test products can be measured. This test is often followed by a hedonic question, asking consumers how much they liked each of the products, or which product they liked most. Combining the analytical CATA test with a hedonic question allows linking sensory attributes with consumer acceptance. For example, it can determine which attributes are most strongly associated with higher or lower liking scores.

The order of the tests can influence the results. This has been topic of an ongoing debate: CATA before the hedonic question results in enhanced product differentiation and a lower number of consumers needed. However, it can be argued that participants might be influenced by their ratings on the attributes and tasting during the analytical test. This could give a biased liking rating. Recently, research has shown that CATA before the hedonic question gives more detailed and discriminative results.^[1]

It should be noted that when setting up a sensory test that combines analytical and hedonic questions, thought should be put into what the most important outcome of the test is, and through wat order of testing that can best be achieved.