Nofima AS, P.O. Box 210, 1431 Ås, Norway.
Sensometrics & Consumer Science, Instituto Polo Tecnológico de Pando, Facultad de Química, Universidad de la República, By Pass de Rutas 8 y 101 s/n, CP 91000 Pando, Canelones, Uruguay.
Food Res Int. 2017 Sep;99(Pt 1):693-701. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2017.06.021. Epub 2017 Jun 12.
Projective mapping (PM), one of the most holistic product profiling methods in approach, is increasingly being used to uncover consumers' perception of products and packages. Assessors rely on a process of synthesis for evaluating product information, which would determine the relative importance of the perceived characteristics they use for mapping them. Individual differences are expected, as participants are not instructed on the characteristics to consider for evaluating the degree of difference among samples, generating different perceptual spaces. Individual differences in cognitive style can affect synthesis processes and thus their perception of similarities and differences among samples. In this study, the influence of the cognitive style in the results of PM was explored. Two consumer studies were performed, one aimed at describing intrinsic sensory characteristics of chocolate flavoured milk and the other one looking into extrinsic (package only) of blueberry yogurts. Consumers completed the wholistic-analytic module of the extended Verbal Imagery Cognitive Styles Test & Extended Cognitive Style Analysis-Wholistic Analytic Test, to characterize their cognitive style. Differences between wholistic and analytic consumers in how they evaluated samples using projective mapping were found in both studies. Analytics separated the samples more in the PM perceptual space than wholistic consumers, showing more discriminating abilities. This may come from a deeper analysis of the samples, both from intrinsic and extrinsic point of views. From a sensory perspective (intrinsic), analytic consumers relied on more sensory characteristics, while wholistic mainly discriminated samples according to sweetness and bitterness/chocolate flavour. In the extrinsic study however, even if analytic consumers discriminated more between packs, they described the products using similar words in the descriptive step. One important recommendation coming from this study is the need to consider higher dimensions in the interpretation of projective mapping tasks, as the first dimensions could underestimate the complexity of the perceptual space; currently, most applications of PM consider two dimensions only, which may not uncover the perception of specific groups of consumers.
投射映射（PM） 是一种最全面的产品分析方法，它越来越多地被用于揭示消费者对产品和包装的感知。评估者依赖于综合评估产品信息的过程，这将决定他们用于映射感知特征的相对重要性。由于没有指导参与者评估样本间差异程度时应考虑哪些特征，因此预计会存在个体差异，从而产生不同的感知空间。认知风格的个体差异会影响综合过程，从而影响他们对样本间相似性和差异性的感知。在这项研究中，探讨了认知风格对 PM 结果的影响。进行了两项消费者研究，一项旨在描述巧克力味牛奶的内在感官特征，另一项则着眼于蓝莓酸奶的外在（仅包装）。消费者完成了扩展言语意象认知风格测试和扩展认知风格分析-整体分析测试的整体分析模块，以描述他们的认知风格。在这两项研究中，都发现整体消费者和分析消费者在使用投射映射评估样本时的差异。分析消费者在 PM 感知空间中对样本的分离程度大于整体消费者，显示出更强的辨别能力。这可能来自于对样本的更深入分析，从内在和外在的角度来看。从感官角度（内在）来看，分析消费者依赖于更多的感官特征，而整体消费者主要根据甜度和苦味/巧克力味来区分样本。然而，在外部研究中，即使分析消费者在包装之间的差异更大，他们在描述性步骤中仍使用相似的词来描述产品。这项研究的一个重要建议是，在解释投射映射任务时需要考虑更高的维度，因为第一维度可能低估了感知空间的复杂性；目前，PM 的大多数应用仅考虑两个维度，这可能无法揭示特定消费者群体的感知。
