Sensometrics - Applied Multivariate Analysis in Sensory & Food Science

Catalog description

The main objective of this course is to allow each student to develop the necessary data analysis skills needed for analyzing and interpreting sensory and consumer data. Additionally, students will develop an understanding for experimental designs and statistical analyses to plan, analyze, and interpret data collected from sensory studies. Hands-on experiences in analyzing sensory data will be provided through homework assignments in each week, and discussions of appropriate literature where indicated. Topics covered in this course will include experimental design and data visualization, data analysis of discrimination tests, analysis methods for descriptive data, approaches for understanding consumer results and identifying drivers of liking, as well as novel statistical methods for alternative descriptive methods (sorting, napping, check-all-that-apply, etc.), ways of analyzing temporal sensory data, and correlating sensory data to other data, such as demographics or instrumental analyses. Discussion of current literature, where appropriate, will showcase how these methods are applied in the "real world", and further the understanding of how these methods are used, and interpreted. In addition, students will develop and further their critical thinking and communication skills.