Line scales are employed for panel training and data collection in QDA®. This line scale is designed as 6-inch in length with sensory intensities word anchors located 0.5 inch from each end. The scale direction goes from left to right with increasing intensities, e.g., weak to strong, little to much3.During data collection, panelists measure sensory intensities independently at individual booth without reference served as intensities standards. Panelists are allowed to use different parts of the scale to determine the sensory intensities by themselves. As a result, the difference among products produced by QDA® will be a relative measurement; the importance of absolute scale value has been neglected1. Subjects’ reliability is evaluated by their repeated measurements on product attributes.
The results from QDA® are informative for statistical practices to meet project goal. Panel performance can be examined by interaction of product and panelist; product difference can be diagnosed by means of a one-way AOV based on attributes. Statistical procedures, such as multivariate analysis of variance, principle component analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis can be widely applied to QDA® dataset1;means of attributes in the same sensory category can be graphically presented by a “spider web” , see figure 1.