Xia Yixun, Song Jiahui, Lee PuiYee, Shen Huijuan, Hou Jiaoliang, Yang Jian, Gao Boyang, Zhong Fang
State Key Laboratory of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu, China; School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu, China.
MMR Research Worldwide, 237 Pandan Loop, #05-01 Westech Building, 128424, Singapore.
Food Res Int. 2020 Nov;137:109378. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2020.109378. Epub 2020 Jun 4.
Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) is a very popular tool for rapid sensory profiling in consumer research. Yet, consumers' dietary habits, such as consumption frequency, has been neglected in regard to the impact, if any, on CATA question responses. The present work aimed to fill this gap, by focusing on the effect of different consumption frequencies with four studies (N = 686). Two categories of drink products were involved, chrysanthemum tea and instant coffee. For each category, two sets of products were prepared to constitute two levels of difference between samples (larger vs. smaller). Consumers were classified into high- and low-consumption groups according to their consumption frequencies of each focal product; the size of these subgroups ranged from 54 to 130. Overall, the two groups did not produce large discrepancies from each other when constructing sensory profiling of the tested samples with CATA questions as well as the stability of sample configurations. However, there were some nuances between them. In the evaluation of chrysanthemum tea samples, the higher-consumption group of consumers presented better discrimination than the lower-consumption group while this was reversed for coffee samples. This might be mainly attributed to the fact infrequent consumers were more sensitive to such negative attributes as "strong chrysanthemum smell for chrysanthemum samples, earthy for coffee samples". Further, despite the higher stability obtained with larger sizes of difference between samples in Studies 3 and 4, in general, the effect of size of differences within sample sets was not significant between different consumption groups. To more effectively contribute to refinement of methodological guidelines for CATA questions, more validation work is needed.
多选式（CATA）是消费者研究中快速感官剖析的一种非常流行的工具。然而，消费者的饮食习惯，如消费频率，在对CATA问题回答的影响（如果有）方面一直被忽视。本研究旨在通过四项研究（N = 686）关注不同消费频率的影响来填补这一空白。研究涉及两类饮品，即菊花茶和速溶咖啡。对于每一类，准备了两组产品以构成样本之间的两个差异水平（较大差异与较小差异）。根据消费者对每种目标产品的消费频率将其分为高消费组和低消费组；这些亚组的规模从54到130不等。总体而言，在用CATA问题构建测试样本的感官剖析以及样本配置的稳定性方面，两组之间没有产生很大差异。然而，它们之间存在一些细微差别。在对菊花茶样本的评估中，高消费组的消费者比低消费组表现出更好的辨别能力，而对于咖啡样本则相反。这可能主要归因于不常消费的消费者对诸如“菊花样本有强烈菊花味，咖啡样本有土腥味”等负面属性更敏感。此外，尽管在研究3和4中样本之间差异较大时获得了更高的稳定性，但总体而言，样本集内差异大小的影响在不同消费组之间并不显著。为了更有效地为完善CATA问题的方法指南做出贡献，还需要更多的验证工作。
