Sensory science is the study of how we perceive something through our senses such as sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
Sensory Science is a field that all of us interact with every day, though most have never heard of it. Working with sensory science for many years, I have met many blank faces when asked what profession I was in, and my respond was “working with sensory science”. Working with what?!
Derived from the term it is obviously something to do with senses – and apparently, it’s a science. But what exactly is it?
Sensory Science explained
A widely accepted definition of sensory science is a scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret responses to products as perceived through the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing).
Basically, it means how we through the use of our human senses perceive something like e.g. a food item or a glass of wine. How much do you like it? What does it taste like? How salty is it? Etc.
Sensory science is widespread used in product development in e.g. the food and beverage industry to investigate how new products gets the optimal taste, smell, appearance etc.
A scientific method used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret those responses to products as perceived through the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing.
Stone & Sidel
Not just physical
Even though using our senses is a physiological and neurological reaction in the body sending a signal from the sensory receptors to the brain, sensory science is more than that. It is a multidisciplinary field where also psychological and sociological factors are important.
If you eat or drink something, the way you perceive it is influenced by the food culture you are part of. Is e.g. fried spider a treat or a horror? It probably depends on where in the world you are from. Foods can give rise to emotions and thoughts based on past experiences and our food culture.
Furthermore, the surroundings are very important for your experience. Are you amongst your dearest friends in a warm and relaxed atmosphere, are you involuntarily eating or drinking alone or are you in an uncomfortable or stressful environment? It has a huge impact on how much we like something.
Hence, the sensory perception of a product is based on the physiologic stimuli on our senses together with emotions, memories and experiences associated with the product.
How much do you like it?
Sensory science is used where machines fall short, because sensory experiences are very complex. You cannot find machines that can precisely mimic the human brain; therefore the human senses are used as the measuring tool in sensory science.
They can be used to create both subjective and objective results. How much you like something is a subjective measurement which is very important knowledge for the industry and producers when developing new products.
Humans as machines
But methods in sensory science can also be used to get objective measures on products, like how sour is it, how strong is the cinnamon aroma and so on. Here humans are used in place of machines to evaluate characteristics of products.
Like a machine, the humans in a sensory panel are trained and ‘calibrated’ to ensure a certain level of accuracy and uniformity.
Specific standardization methods are used to ensure as objective measurements as possible, for example randomized samples, training on scale-use and solo booths for tasting. Statistically methods are additionally used on the results to ensure that they are reliable.
Sensory science can therefore be used in many different contexts and with different purposes.
Reference: Herbert Stone & Joel Sidel (1993) Sensory Evaluation Practices. 2nd Edition. San Diego, California: Elsevier Academic Press.
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