Concept of influence in sensorial analysis


Sensorial analysis is a set of methods for measuring sensory perceptions. The first of these measures is the characterization of odor or taste using descriptors from a structured vocabulary associated with a domain. Sensorial analysis requires the intervention of a panel of assessors. When the panel is a group of trained individuals who have a full understanding of the vocabulary of the field, sensorial analysis has been the subject of numerous evaluation protocols. On the other hand, if the panellists are naive subjects, with poor understanding of the descriptors, then the sensorial characterization of an individual is strongly influenced by subjectivity and then exposed to the influence of other panellists. In this paper, we are interested in measuring this qualitative influence. Our proposal is inspired by game theory models. We propose to extend them to the qualitative and gradual decision process involved in sensorial analysis to define an influence index in this framework.