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INTRODUCTION
The ”human senses in action” may be considered as our principal way of obtaining
knowledge about the world around us. During every moment, each of us is embedded in
streams of physical energy: e.g. light and sound waves, electromagnetic fields, mechanical
forces, optical and chemical phenomena. Much of this physical energy passes by without
being noticed, while some of it reaches our senses and attention, giving rise to more or less
conscious experiences: we hear the sound of music, we see the litmus paper turns from red to
blue and we taste the bitterness of beer. Maybe we are not aware of the fact that we are
constantly using our senses, also in scientific work?
Traditionally, quantification of connections between physical energies and
psychological experiences has belonged to the field of psychophysics. At the web site of the
International Society of Psychophysics the following general definition of psychophysics is
offered by John C. Baird and Elliot Noma from their 1978 book, Fundamentals of Scaling
and Psychophysics (John Wiley & Sons, Inc), on page 1:
The present lecture* aims at linking the field of sensory science to the psychophysical area as
defined by Baird and Noma (1978) by giving examples from ongoing research in our
laboratory**. How can the two fields benefit from each other?
* Parts of this lecture was presented at the 3rd Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium “Sense and Sensibility” in
Norway 1998 (Martens 1999).
** see also http://www.mli.kvl.dk/sensory
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gas chromatography. Further, many product properties, such as colour, flavour and texture are
measured by one instrument (i.e. the human senses) and on the same samples instead of using
e.g. spectrophotometers for colour, GC for smell, HPLC for taste and Rheological
instruments for texture. That sensory methods are cheap is almost taboo to say. But what are
the costs of buying, mastering, maintaining and operating a large laboratory of expensive
instruments covering the whole spectrum of the different sense modalities?
left-handers. Right-handers also significantly perceive the odours as more intense than
left-handers.
links the visually oriented interpretation of designed experiments by PLSR to the more formal
statistical Analysis of Variance, and shows that the different levels of validity can be checked
without difficult statistical theory. Preliminary studies of structure and reliability of sensory
data by combining PLSR with Procrustes analysis (Dijksterhuis 1997) and different multiway
models have started, also related to modelling time-intensity curves.
Our results from several experiments indicate that it is easier to obtain an
intersubjective consensus among panellists for appearance, and thereafter texture, than for
flavour. This raises many interesting interpretations which may be linked to the distinctions
between the “higher and “lower” senses (Köster 2000).
CONCLUSIONS
The research into “human senses in action” needs to continue to aim at sound sensory theories
and methods based on new understanding of sensation-perception-cognition processing,
multivariate and multimodal psychophysics as well as more basic understanding of potentials
in modern multivariate data analysis.
REFERENCES
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communication. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 16, 612-625.
Dijksterhuis, G.B. (1997) Multivariate data analysis in sensory and consumer science. Food and Nutrition
Press, USA.
Herz, R.S, McCall C. and Cahill, L. (1999) Hemispheric lateralization in the processing of odor pleasantness
versus odor names. Chem. Senses, 24, 691-695.
Köster, E.P. (2000) The specific characteristics of the sense of smell (submitted)
Lazarus, R.S. (1984) On the primacy of cognition. American Psychologist, 39, 124-129.
Martens, H. and Martens, M. (2000) Modified jack-knife estimation of parameter uncertainty in bilinear
modelling by partial least squares regression (PLSR). Food Quality and Preference, 11, 5-16.
Martens, M. (1999) A philosophy for sensory science. Food Quality and Preference, 10, 233-244.
Rolls, E.T. (1999) The brain and emotion.. Oxford University Press Inc., NY
Schwarz, G.E., Davidson R.J. and Maer F. (1975) Science, 190, 286-288.
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