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Consumer Testing (consumer + testing)
Selected AbstractsMeasuring Hospital Care from the Patients' Perspective: An Overview of the CAHPS® Hospital Survey Development ProcessHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 6p2 2005Elizabeth Goldstein Objective. To describe the developmental process for the CAHPS® Hospital Survey. Study Design. A pilot was conducted in three states with 19,720 hospital discharges. Methods of Analysis. A rigorous, multi-step process was used to develop the CAHPS Hospital Survey. It included a public call for measures, multiple Federal Register notices soliciting public input, a review of the relevant literature, meetings with hospitals, consumers and survey vendors, cognitive interviews with consumer, a large-scale pilot test in three states and consumer testing and numerous small-scale field tests. Findings. The current version of the CAHPS Hospital Survey has survey items in seven domains, two overall ratings of the hospital and five items used for adjusting for the mix of patients across hospitals and for analytical purposes. Conclusions. The CAHPS Hospital Survey is a core set of questions that can be administered as a stand-alone questionnaire or combined with a broader set of hospital specific items. [source] PERCEPTION OF CHEESE: A COMPARISON OF QUALITY SCORING, DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS AND CONSUMER RESPONSESJOURNAL OF FOOD QUALITY, Issue 4 2005MARGRETHE HERSLETH ABSTRACT The main objective of this study was to study perception of cheeses by comparing quality scores from expert assessors, descriptive profiling data from selected assessors and consumer responses. Twelve cheeses were evaluated by expert assessors and profiled by selected assessors. Five cheeses were selected for consumer testing and rated for hedonic liking, plus flavor intensity and degree of soft/firm texture. Analysis of variance and multivariate analyses of the data showed that the expert assessors scores for consistency, flavor and overall quality correlated positively with descriptive profiling attributes as mature flavor/odor, firmness, graininess and dryness of the cheeses. Preference mapping showed an even distribution of the consumers in the sensory map, which indicated different sensory segments. Some consumers preferred a firm cheese with a mild, mature flavor and others preferred a doughy cheese with more acid, fermented flavor. The expert assessors represented the preferences of the first group in their scoring procedure. [source] Bihon-Type Noodles from Heat-Moisture-Treated Sweet Potato StarchJOURNAL OF FOOD SCIENCE, Issue 4 2001L.S. Collado ABSTRACT Sweet potato starch (SPS) has limited uses in the Philippines, but modification of its properties may make it more suitable for use in traditional products that normally use other types of starch. Heat-moisture treatment was applied to native SPS (HMTSPS), which was used as a substrate and composite with maize starch (MS) to produce bihon -type starch noodles. Preliminary quality scoring showed that acceptability scores of raw starch noodles, plain boiled, and sautéed noodles made from 100% HMTSPS and 50% HMTSPS:50% MS were not significantly different from the commercial bihon. However, consumer testing is recommended to further validate acceptability of the sweet potato for bihon. [source] A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEDONIC SCALES AND END-ANCHOR COMPRESSION EFFECTSJOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES, Issue 2010HARRY T. LAWLESS ABSTRACT Three experiments were conducted to compare the relative performance of hedonic scaling methods, including the labeled affective magnitude (LAM) scale. In the first study, three versions of the LAM were used to evaluate 20 phrases that described diverse sensory experiences. One scale was anchored to "greatest imaginable like/dislike for any experience" and another used the "greatest imaginable like" phrase of the LAM but with the interior phrases repositioned relative to "any experience." The scale anchored to "any experience" showed a smaller range of scale usage and lower statistical differentiation, relative to the LAM scale, with the repositioned scale intermediate. Two further experiments compared the LAM to the nine-point hedonic scale, an 11-point category scale using the LAM phrases, and to a three-label line scale, a simplified version of the LAM with only the end phrases and the neutral center-point phrase. All scales showed similar differentiation of juices in the second study and sensory experience phrases in the third. A modest advantage for the LAM scale in the second experiment did not extend to the third study. Researchers should be careful in the choice of high end anchors for hedonic scales, as a compressed range of scale usage may result in lower product differentiation. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Hedonic scales for food acceptability are widely used in new product development for consumer testing and in food preference surveys. A desired goal of efficient sensory evaluation testing is the ability of tests to differentiate samples on the basis of scale data, in this case scales commonly used for food acceptability and preference testing. Scales which are able to differentiate products more effectively are less likely to lead to Type II error in experimentation, in which true differences between products are not detected. Such errors can lead to lost opportunities for product improvements or to enhanced chances for taking undetected risks in the case of false parity conclusions. [source] DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE CREAMY STYLE PEANUT BUTTERS,JOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES, Issue 5 2002KAY L. McNEILL ABSTRACT This study was undertaken to establish category and product descriptive characteristics of commercial creamy style peanut butters for use in subsequent modeling of consumer response. An established descriptive lexicon for peanut flavor was modified with additional appearance and texture terminology to describe these samples. To determine the full category space for the appearance, flavor and texture characteristics for commercial creamy style peanut butters, a highly trained descriptive panel screened 42 brands. A subset of 22 peanut butters was identified which represented the available range of appearance, flavor and texture variations and determined the product category. These 22 commercial creamy style peanut butters were subsequently evaluated and quantitatively described using 4 appearance, 19 flavor and 12 texture descriptors. Using both hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis, 4 logical associative groupings of products were identified: store and name brands, natural brands, reduced fat brands, and some store or name brands with unique or unusual appearance, flavor or texture characteristics. Omission of products with redundant characteristics within a factor grouping enabled further reduction to 15 products for subsequent quantitative consumer testing to establish a model for descriptive analysis as a predictor of consumer research responses. [source] Polyphenol-rich beverages: insights from sensory and consumer scienceJOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Issue 14 2009Sara R Jaeger Abstract BACKGROUND: Reaching a go/no-go decision on a product concept early in the innovation cycle can save companies significant resources. The current research is situated within this context. Using polyphenol-rich beverages that were at an early stage in the formulation/optimisation cycle, a number of insights were sought: (1) how acceptable to consumers were these early-stage formulations; (2) what sensory attributes contributed to consumer liking/disliking; and (3) could the disliked sensory attribute(s) be sufficiently masked within the chosen product format? RESULTS: Beverages were formulated according to a 2 × 4 factorial design where one factor varied the polyphenol source and the other sweetness. While consumer acceptability and purchase probability increased with sucrose concentration, the beverages were of below-average sensory quality. Bitterness was identified as a key sensory attribute to focus on in future optimisation efforts. CONCLUSION: A number of approaches exist for masking bitterness and there appeared to be little reason why at least some of the beverages could not be improved to achieve high levels of sensory quality and consumer acceptance. Further, it is suggested that disclosing information about health properties of these polyphenol-rich beverages during consumer testing may further enhance their appeal to consumers. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry [source] Recent advances of genetic ancestry testing in biomedical research and direct to consumer testingCLINICAL GENETICS, Issue 3 2009M Via In the post-Human Genome Project era, the debate on the concept of race/ethnicity and its implications for biomedical research are dependent on two critical issues: whether and how to classify individuals and whether biological factors play a role in health disparities. The advent of reliable estimates of genetic (or biogeographic) ancestry has provided this debate with a quantitative and more objective tool. The estimation of genetic ancestry allows investigators to control for population stratification in association studies and helps to detect biological causation behind population-specific differences in disease and drug response. New techniques such as admixture mapping can specifically detect population-specific risk alleles for a disease in admixed populations. However, researchers have to be mindful of the correlation between genetic ancestry and socioeconomic and environmental factors that could underlie these differences. More importantly, researchers must avoid the stigmatization of individuals based on perceived or real genetic risks. The latter point will become increasingly sensitive as several ,for profit companies' are offering ancestry and genetic testing directly to consumers and the consequences of the spread of the services of these companies are still unforeseeable. [source] | ||||||||||