The impact of applied context on consumer acceptance and taint detection measured with implicit and explicit methods
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Date
2020-02
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Abstract
Product failure continues to impact the food industry, even with rigorous sensory testing taking place prior to product launch. Unidentified taints may be responsible for some of these failures. Standard sensory evaluation practices advise the removal of product context to eliminate biasing information. However, introduction of an appropriate context may prompt panelists to pay closer attention to samples and improve test performance. The present studies aim to validate the effect applied context has on consumer perceptions and liking of identical product samples; and determine if applied context aids panelists in taint detection. To determine how context impacts panelist perception, panelists in the first two studies were presented three identical samples labeled as “Consumer Complaint”, “Factory Typical”, and “New and Improved” and given typical explicit sensory questions. The third study built upon these results and introduced an added taint to half of the samples. Additionally, the third study included implicit measurement methods using FaceReader software to quantify emotional intensity during product consumption. Explicit results showed that applied context significantly impacted acceptance of the identical samples in all sensory tests. As expected, the “Consumer Complaint” context received lower panelist acceptance than “Factory Typical” and “New and Improved” samples (p<0.05). Samples presented without context did not significantly differ in panelist acceptance scores. Implicit results showed tainted samples with applied context had significantly greater levels of disgust by panelists than context-free tainted samples (p=0.05). In conclusion priming panelists with a negative bias readies them to identify product taints. In the future this sensory approach could allow product development professionals the ability to identify drivers of disliking prior to product launch, improving the likelihood of market success.
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Poster Division: Social and Behavioral Sciences: 2nd Place (The Ohio State University Edward F. Hayes Graduate Research Forum)
Keywords
Context, Taint Detection, Consumer Acceptance, Implicit, Sensory Evaluation, Negativity Bias