provide an opportunity to probe for diagnostic information concerning the reasons for liking or disliking a product. Workers in the food industry were occasionally in contact with psychol ogists who studied the senses and had developed techniques for assessing sensory function(Moskowitz, 1983). The development of the 9-point hedo nic scale serves as a good illustration of what can be realized when there is interaction between measurement experimental technique called psychologists and food scientists. A psy chological Thurstonian scaling(see Chapter 5) was used to validate the adverbs for the labels on the 9-point he donic scale. This interaction is also visible in the authorship of this book: One author is trained in food science and microbiology; the other is an ex perimental psychologist. It should not surprise us that interactions would occur, and perhaps the only puzzle is why the interchanges were not more sustained and productive. Differences in language, goals, and experimental focus probably contributed to some difficulties. Psychologists were focused primarily on the individual person, while sensory evaluation specialists were focused primarily on the food product(the stimulus). However, since a sensory perception involves the necessary interaction of a person with stimulus, it should be apparent that similar test methods are necessarv to