Article Review

Posted: January 4th, 2023

Article Review

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Article Review

This evaluation focuses on article by Yang, J., and Lee, J. titled “Application of sensory descriptive analysis and consumer studies to investigate traditional and authentic foods: A review”, which was published in Foods journal in 2019. The introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion, conclusion, and the overall strengths and weaknesses of the article are evaluated.

Introduction

The introduction justifies the paper by recognizing that although several studies on sensory analysis of foods using descriptive methods had been published, their quality was low, particularly in the use of sensory descriptive analysis methodologies. Similarly, there was minimal inclusion of the authentic and traditional food cultures that were different from every day foods, in the studies. However, to confirm these assertions, a review of the published literature was conducted, considering that no other such review had been conducted previously.

The introduction contains sufficient background to enable the following of the review of published articles. For instance, it provides a brief history of sensory science and concise description of what sensory science is, by noting that sensory science was conceived by the US Army Engineering Corps in the1940s as part of the methodologies for assessing “consumer or hedonic food acceptance” (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 2). However, the introduction gives lengthy descriptions of sensory descriptive analysis and consumer acceptability testing as the two of the sensory science research methods (Yang & Lee, 2019). These descriptions include their components and the elements they measure, covering almost 2 pages with several studies being used to illustrated their applications. However, no hypotheses were presented in the introduction, thus making it difficult for the reader to break down the aim of the review, which is to describe and summarize the available high quality descriptive and consumer studies available that deal with special and unique foods.

Material and methods

The study presented in the paper is difficult to replicate. Although it describes the sample used, the study does not discuss how the articles were analyzed. Most significantly, the paper does not have a heading to indicate where the materials and methods can be found in the paper, making it difficult for a reader to follow because it impairs legibility. Instead, the methods are presented under the sections titled “literature review” and “sensory descriptive analysis” (Yang & Lee, 2019, 3). Moreover, the tables describing the studies reviewed is detached from this section forcing the reader to scroll back and forth across the paper to confirm the studies used. However, the sampling procedure and the keywords used to search for the papers from online sources are described briefly. Specifically, keywords like “consumer liking”, “descriptive sensory lexicon”, “descriptive sensory characteristics”, and “descriptive sensory terminology” are explained under “literature review” (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 3). The search for sensory descriptive analysis and consumer testing studies yielded 34 and 24 studies, respectively.   

The study employed both trained panelists and consumers. The trained panelists participated in the evaluation of studies conducted using the descriptive analysis methodology, while consumers were used studies in which consumer testing was conducted. The panelists and consumers comprised men and women. Some of the panelists had prior experience in the sensory study methodologies, while others had to be trained to be able to evaluate the reviewed studies. For instance, experienced panelists evaluated a study about rooibos, while another 10 female ones evaluated teas (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 3). In total, 5-19 panelists and 40-410 consumers were used to evaluate the different studies analyzed. Moreover, the consumers that evaluated the studies on consumer testing were drawn from several countries, such as the United States, Korea, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Jordan, China, Thailand, Argentina, and Japan (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 10). Although some panelists had extensive training in general descriptive and sensory descriptive methodologies having received 120 hours and 1200 hours of training, respectively, the paper does not disclose how the training was conducted (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 3). Therefore, the paper does not clarify whether the panelists had been trained for this study or that was part of their general skillset that they brought to the study. Similarly, it is not clear the approach used to inform the panelists about the study objectives.   

The protocols used were appropriate for the study, despite the lack of hypotheses. In this regard, the protocols focused on the sensory descriptive analysis and consumer acceptability studies, which were identified in the aims of the paper. Moreover, several experiments were replicated in both methodologies. For instance, under studies that used the sensory descriptive analysis, studies on rooibos, green tea, soy sauce, and tofu, had several replications (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 7). Similarly, green tea, soy sauce, and olive oil attracted more than one study employing the consumer tests methodology (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 10).  However, no statistical tests were employed in the data analysis. Instead, a thematic analysis approach that analyzed the contents in the sample papers was used.

Results & Discussion

The paper has no “results” section; rather the findings are presented under the two sensory methodologies headings. The findings are presented thematically under food categories such as beverages, sauce paste and dressing, and miscellaneous, separated for each methodology (Yang & Lee, 2019). Two tables summarized the sampled papers, with one table focusing on the papers reporting about the sensory descriptive analysis studies while the other presented the articles dealing with consumer acceptability studies. However, there were no figures presented in the paper. The tables were clearly labelled. However, the explanations presented in the tables were inadequate.

The discussion took a narrative format, which had minimal supporting data from the findings of the studies that were reviewed. Notably, the discussion was very short, covering less than a page, because it did not make sufficient references to the findings. In this regard, the discussion refers to only one dataset related to the number of consumers from three countries that was involved in one of the cross-cultural studies that was reviewed.   

The findings and interpretations are sound enough to suffice the aim of the study. Specifically, the interpretations are related to the quality of sensory descriptive analysis and consumer acceptability studies. To that extent, the soundness is adequate because the limitations of the studies are identified, which confirm those of other studies. Notably, several studies are cited to support the limitations discussed. However, it is difficult to distinguish between information from the reviewed samples and the literature that is used to support the discussion.

The results do not deviate from previous research because they identify the limitations in quality that had been noted. For instance, the results indicate that the use of few and varied panelists and consumers compromised the quality of the studies (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 12). Consequently, this deficiency made it difficult to generalize the findings across entire communities. Moreover, there lacked a recommended number of judges to guide the evaluation process, which lead to their great variation in studies. Besides, studies used sensory descriptive and consumer acceptability analyses separately, making is difficult to discern the entire spectrum of food attributes. In the same vein, the results were extensively discussed under thematic headings. The studies investigated under each food type were described in detail with the food characteristics being provided sufficient attention. In addition, the study recommends the use of larger samples and the use of sensory descriptive and consumer acceptability methodologies concurrently in the same study to improve the quality of findings (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 12).

Conclusion

The conclusions are adequately supported by the results and discussions. More importantly, the conclusions relate to the aims of the study. While no new information is presented by the study, several methodological limitations that had challenged previous studies reemerged. This study reinforced the findings and deficiencies of previous studies in the sensory analysis topic by providing more evidence. However, the study noted that the lexicon of foods was widening due to the increasing diversity of traditional and ethnic foods that were being shared across great distances, courtesy of globalization. Thus the study called for more cross-cultural studies to establish lexicons that were universally recognizable (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 12).    

Strength and Weakness of the Paper

The strength of this paper is grounded on its interrogation of a social issue that is pervading the contemporary society and changing the culinary experiences of people across the world. The topic of sensory analysis is gaining more importance due to multicultural interactions caused by globalization (Yang & Lee, 2019, p. 12). However, the paper is weak because it is poorly organized, particularly in its description of methodologies, and inaccurate and improper signposting, which makes it difficult to follow the study presented and tends to confuse the reader.

References

Yang, J., & Lee, J. (2019). Application of sensory descriptive analysis and consumer studies to investigate traditional and authentic foods: A review. Foods, 8(2), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods8020054.