Evolution of the Sensory Science Discipline

摘要

During the past 50 years, the development of a set of organized principles and methods based on scientific data has led to the establishment of sensory evaluation as a scientific discipline. What are the differentiating aspects between sensory science and sensory evaluation? Perhaps the simplest differentiation would be to think of sensory science as the fundamental physiological and psychological underpinings of sensory evaluation. This could include our basic understandings of the mechanisms of taste and odor, kinesthesis and the various techniques of scaling and statistical analysis. Whereas, sensory evaluation could designate the application of this knowledge and the development of specific methods for the evaluation of the discriminative, descriptive and affective nature of products, in a problem- solving situation.