Sensory characterisation of ewe's milk cheeses using direct and indirect similarity measures:: a comparison

The purpose of the present study is to compare several direct and indirect (profile and hedonic scores) similarity measures. Moreover, the main relationships among assessors, sensory attributes and ewe's milk cheeses have been explored using different statistical techniques. For this purpose, visual inspection and correlation coefficients among cheese sample sensory dimensions have been considered. All the solutions lead to very similar spatial configurations, except for preference data. In this case the considered techniques are very useful tools in the study of sensory attributes. Individual differences among assessors: have been demonstrated to be quite high. Thus it is clear that methods that consider this variability in the data should be used, to which end, assessors should undergo specific training depending on the tests to be performed. (C) 2002 Society of Chemical Industry.