Temporal dominance of sensations and sensory profiling: A comparative study D. Labbe a, * , P. Schlich b , N. Pineau a , F. Gilbert a,c , N. Martin a a Nestlé Research Center, P.O. Box 44, Vers-chez-les-Blane 1000, Lausanne 26, Switzerland b Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût, CNRS-UB-INRA, 21000 Dijon, France c Food Science Australia, A joint venture of CSIRO and the Victorian Government, North Ryde NSW 1670, Australia article info Article history: Received 7 April 2008 Received in revised form 23 September 2008 Accepted 2 October 2008 Available online 8 October 2008 Keywords: Temporal dominance of sensations Sensory profiling Dynamic of perception abstract Temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) is a recent descriptive sensory method consisting in assessing repeatedly, until the sensations end, which sensation is dominant and in scoring its intensity. Compared to time–intensity, this method considers the multidimensionality of the perceptual space over time. The objectives of this study were first to compare description of gels containing different levels of odorants (peach and mint), citric acid, cooling agent and xanthan gum obtained with TDS and with a conventional descriptive method and then to explore the impact of mint and peach odorant on long lasting perception. TDS provided reliable information close to standard sensory profiling. In addition, TDS provided informa- tion on the dynamic of perception after product consumption that was not available using a conventional profiling method and that may be critical for the understanding of complex perceptions such as refreshing. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Sensory profiling is a descriptive approach widely used to qual- ify the nature and quantify the intensity of the sensory properties of food (Stone, Sidel, Oliver, Woolsey, & Singleton, 1974). By this method, product sensory properties are assessed immediately after sniffing or eating. A few seconds separate the sensory stimulation and its characterisation and quantification using a scale. However, perception is not a single event but a dynamic process with a series of events (Piggott, 1994). To take into account the dynamics of perception, the time intensity (T–I) method was developed by Lar- son-Powers and Pangborn (1978) to measure the intensity and the duration of sweetness, bitterness, sourness and flavour in different solutions. The lingering perceptions induced by sweeteners (Ujika- wa & Bolini, 2004), bitter compounds (Pangborn, Lewis, & Yamash- ita, 1983), and trigeminal compounds such as menthol (Gwartney & Heymann, 1996) have been broadly investigated using this tech- nique (See Cliff & Heymann, 1993 and Piggott, 2000 for a review). Perceptual interactions have also been highlighted between (1) olfactory perception and taste by dual-attribute T–I in chewing gum (Duizer, Bloom, & Findlay, 1997) and by conventional T–I in flavoured sucrose solution (Cliff & Noble, 1990), (2) olfactory per- ception and texture by conventional T–I in whey protein gels (Weel et al., 2002); and (3) more recently between hot trigeminal percep- tion from capsaicin, flavour and texture in pork patties (Reinbach et al., 2007). But the main constraint of T–I is that the evaluation is limited to one or two sensory attributes at a time. The multidi- mensionality of the perceptual space over time is therefore not con- sidered. For this reason, temporal dominance of sensation (TDS) has been recently developed (Pineau, Cordelle, Imbert, Rogeaux, & Schlich, 2003) and a study showed that TDS was more relevant for representing product perception pattern and highlighting interac- tion between attributes compared to T–I (Le Reverend, Hidrio, Fer- nandes, & Aubry, 2008). This descriptive sensory method consists in assessing iteratively at each specific time until the sensations ends, which sensation is dominant and in scoring its intensity. In this study the meaning of dominant was the most intense sensation. The objectives of this study were: (1) to compare the sensory characterisation of nine gels done according to the sensory profil- ing method which was acquired in our previous study (Labbe, Gilbert, Antille, & Martin, 2007) and the TDS method; and (2) to ex- plore over time the impact of the odorant type (mint and peach) on taste and trigeminal perceptions. In this context, we used a range of products a priori formulated to be different from a sensory point of view to test the methodology rather than the products. 2. Material and method 2.1. Product formulation The composition and formulation of the nine gels are presented in Table 1, for further details see Labbe et al. (2007). 0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2008.10.001 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +41 2 217858554; fax: +41 2 17858375. E-mail address: david.labbe@rdls.nestle.com (D. Labbe). Food Quality and Preference 20 (2009) 216–221 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Food Quality and Preference journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual