Sorting task and projective maps: holistic methods of sensory characterization

Abstract

The latest advances in sensory science include rapid description techniques, which are notable for their use of consumers or untrained assessors, thereby minimizing the costs involved in training and maintaining a trained panel. Among these new methodologies, the so-called holistic methods stand out, based on the evaluation of overall similarities and differences between products. This article describes two of the most representative and widely used methods for holistic sensory characterization with consumers: sorting tasks and projective maps. This article covers their characteristics, procedures, data processing and analysis, advantages and limitations, and other considerations related to the practice of each method. Regarding the execution procedures, it is argued that these methods are rapid, easy to execute for both the experimenter or director of the sensory test and the consumers, and offer a sensory map similar to that obtained in descriptive analyses with trained judges, in which the differences between the evaluated samples can be appreciated. It is acknowledged that these methods are not advisable for subtle differences between samples. Regarding the statistical analysis of the data, it was found that all the methods detailed in the review require more complex statistical processing than that required for traditional descriptive methods with trained judges.