Psychophysical Measures of Texture

Psychophysical measurement seeks functional relations between instrumentally measured quantities and subjective perceptions. The review concerns the sequence of operations needed to construct meaningful scales for dimensions of perceived texture. Initial investigations require delimitations of the range of texture description in order to select ‘fundamental’ perceptual dimensions. Once dimensions such as subjective hardness or viscosity are selected, the next step is to develop an appropriate scale of magnitude. Placing products into verbal categories or into an ordinal arrangement cannot provide the necessary scale. However, when a scale is set up so that differences or ratios of scale values are meaningful, then an equation can be chosen to describe perceptual strength as a function of physical intensity. By constructing valid scales of perceived texture, it is possible to expand the applications of sensory scaling to encompass the optimization of products and the quality control of food materials under development.