Investigation of Sensory Research of Taste, Sight, Hearing, Smell, and Touch

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To investigate the current trends in the sensory industry, the history of sensory research must first be reviewed. Sensory research began with the five basic senses; smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch. Chemical senses have been defined as taste and smell whereas non chemical senses include sight, hearing and touch (Lundström et al. 2012).
Sensory science is an area that has greatly developed its spectrum of research in the last sixty years or so. The area of sensory science has greatly enhanced its spectrum of research in the last sixty years. This is primarily due to the acceleration of research and technology developments. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, there were significant changes in the sensory world that propelled it into what it has become today. The methods and practices conducted in today’s sensory science have been moulded by the drive to increase the level of food quality on a mainstream basis (Martens, 1999). Quality and sensory first began to be investigated in the 1930’s and 50’s. In the 1960’s, the utilisation of trained panels began (Muñoz, 2002). In the late 20th century, awareness programmes and education initiatives were created. The late 20th century also saw the methods of sensory evaluation and research being documented and published (Muñoz, 2002).
Rose Marie Pangborn was one of the most influential scientists at that time with regard to sensory work (Martens, 1999). This was confirmed when, in 1965, she was a co-author of a book, “Principle of Sensory Evaluation of Food”, which remains to this day the basis of sensory evaluation research. This book was used as a base for teaching and learning about sensory work. Conferences have become a widely used resource in the sensory science world. Th...

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...provide prompt results of the human perception of food. The main disadvantage to the sensory methods is that they tend to be slightly less accurate than the instrumental methods (Ross, 2009). Examples of sensory methods include difference and descriptive tests and the more widely used time – intensity analysis (Ross, 2009). Time – intensity analysis can be described as measuring an attribute over a recorded amount of time (Ross, 2009).
The aim and objective of this project is to determine the need for an Irish Sensory Network, by researching the sensory science field and the current trends of research. A needs survey was also conducted with several different companies and universities. This aided the understanding of what they consider to be the primary and most important needs for the Irish Sensory network from their perspective as a company or institution.

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