Caribb. J. Math. Comput. Sci.

13, 2006, 16-24

An approach for the quantication of qualitative sensory variables using orthogonal polynomials
Biagio Simonetti
University of Sannio, via delle Puglie, 82, 82100, Benevento, Italia e-mail: simonetti@unisannio.it Abstract. Starting from an overview on statistical problems when analyzing sensory data, the author considers in particular the ordinal nature of these variables. The nature of these ordinal data requires a transformation long the whole range of the real numbers. In literature there are dierent methods to transform the ordinal scores and express them in a quantitative and linear measure scale of intervals. This paper provides a new approach to quantify Sensory data using orthogonal polynomials decomposing on contingency tables as proposed by Emerson (1968).

Introduction

The Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA - Stone 1992), is a sensory technique used to obtain an objective description of the sensory properties of various types of products. Generally a panel of subjects (judges or consumers) is selected and trained on a common vocabulary. These judges use a response scale to quantify the perception associated to the descriptors, of each product. From a statisticians point of view there are some diculties related to sensorial analysis. First, the instruments of measurement used in this eld are subjective (i.e. the senses) because it is impossible to reproduce the same conditions in every human tests. We summarize the other problems that a statistician meet in sensory context in two groups; the rst one laids to the assessors and the other one to the data. Regarding the rst issue, (Monrozier-Danzart 2001), we can point out that: assessors have dierent saturation thresholds, they can show specic anosmia or ageusia; assessors have dierent ways to use the scale; assessors do no exactly agree on the sensory concept associated to each descriptor. The training assessors is necessary but has a non negligible cost.

Biagio Simonetti

Concerning the data (Le Calv 2000), we have the following diculties to e use statistical tools: Often we have data tables of the type judge product variables (complex three way data structure); Often there are large amount of missing values in the data. There generally result from a consumer study (no answer) or from assessors (saturation); The response expressed by the judges is on an ordinal scale and mathematical operations are not allowed. In this paper, we consider this last point and we present an approach for quanting ordinal variables using a particular decomposition in orthogonal factors.

The quantication of sensory data

In a sensory test, we have K tables reporting the judgment of K assessors on the J qualitative organoleptic variables for each of P product. In each of this K matrix, the generic element xj,p represent the estimate expressed by the judge k regarding the sensory variable j on the p-th product. Due to non metric nature of this data, a transformation on a continuous scale is necessary to perform quantitative multivariate analysis (i.e. PCA). Dierent approaches has been proposed by the psychophysical theory, to transform qualitative in quantitative data; in this section we summarize the principal approaches proposed in literature. 2.1 Fechners law R = l log(C ) The original intensity C (judge evaluation) is transformed on a logarithmic curve weighted by a constant l choose in the interval ]0,1[. 2.2 Stevens power law R = l Cn The intensity of stimulus C is transformed on the power scale, depending on two constants where l depends on the number of units and n is a measure of the rate of growth of perceived intensity as function of stimulus intensity.

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An approach for the quantication of qualitative sensory variables

2.3

The Beidler Model R=

C l+C

The intensity of the stimulus C is transformed on a sigmoid scale depending on the constant l usually closed to 1. All three psychophysical approaches present the following problems: the value of the constants is not easily denable; all the approaches do not carry about the internal structure of the data; the information arising from the ordinal nature of the data is lost such these transformations.

An algorithmic approach

In this paper, we present a method for transformation ordinal variable based on the decomposition in orthogonal polynomial as proposed by Emerson (1968). 3.1 Decomposition in orthogonal polynomial for contingency tables

Let P a disjunctive code matrix with I rows and J columns denoting by pi,j the generic entry. I Denote by p.j = i=1 pij column margins; we dene Dj the diagonal matrix I J . of relative frequencies with the generic element pnj , and n = i=1 j=1 pij . We can use orthogonal polynomials (either using the recurrence relation formula of Emerson for computing the matrix containing the orthogonal polynomial B using the following formula:
b = Sv [(s(j) Tv )b j(v) j(v1) Vv bj(v2) ]

(1)

where Tv = Vv = Sv =
J j=1 J j=1

J j=1

p.j s(j)b2 j(v1)

p.j s(j)b j(v1) bj(v2) 2 2 p.j s(j)2 b2 j(v1) Tv Vv 1/2

and s(j) (for j=1,2,. . . , J) is a set of ordered column categories . The general relation formula (1) is able to be used when equally spaced integer valued scores, called natural scores, are used to describe the ordered structure of the column categories, common structure present in sensory (or service) evaluation data. The column polynomials are orthogonal with respect to the diagonal metric Dj containing the column margins. The dimension of the B

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Biagio Simonetti

is J J-1 because the rst vector computed by (1) is the trivial solution (ones vector).
J

p.j b b ) = j(v) j(v

j=1

1 if v =v 0 if v =v

(2)

3.2

The method

Let N a PxK (N products, K sensory variables ) matrix. Each variable has J modalities. Codify each variable in disjunctive coding. We obtain K matrices Pk (p, j) (k=1,...,K; p=1,2,...,P) as show by Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Codifying in complete disjunctive coding (with j=5 modalities)

For each of k codied variables, compute, using (1), the orthogonal polynomial matrix Bk . We denote by Zk = P k B k (3)

the matrix Z (zr,s (r = 1, . . . , P ; s = 1, . . . , J 1) containing the coordinates of the k th rst, second, j 1th polynomial degree. The sum of squares of each column of Z matrix is equal to the trace of P2 on which the orthogonal polynomials are computed.
P 2 zr,s = trace(Pk Pk ) r=1

(4)

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An approach for the quantication of qualitative sensory variables

The sum of squares of all entries of Z is equal to the trace of P2 divided by the number of categories minus 1. 1 j1
P J1

zr,s 2 = trace(Pk Pk )
r=1 s=1

(5)

Another important properties is that at equal judgments correspond equal transformation values, this result guarantee that the internal structure of the original data has not been modied.

Application

On consider in this example real data on organoleptic characteristics wine evaluation. A trained judge must evaluate dierent wines giving an evaluation of sensory variables like apple avor, rose smell etc. The data (table 1) reports the judgement expressed by an assessor on ten sensory variables on nine dierent type of wines. The scale used by the judge has 5 modalities (1=characteristic absent, 5=characteristic totally present)
wine apple peach acacia rose sourkraut musty fruit astringent bitter lengtaste wine1 2 3 1 5 3 5 3 1 2 2 wine2 1 4 5 2 4 5 2 2 4 3 wine3 3 1 1 1 3 3 1 3 1 1 wine4 2 2 2 3 2 1 2 4 2 1 wine5 1 5 1 4 2 2 1 5 5 5 wine6 1 1 1 1 5 4 5 1 3 5 wine7 4 1 3 3 2 2 2 1 5 4 wine8 5 1 4 2 1 3 1 1 2 1 wine9 2 1 1 1 2 2 4 2 5 5 Table 1. Wines dataset

Using the previously described methods, we transform each of 9 qualitative variables on rst polynomial degree, second, third, fourth (due to the fact that the variables have 5 modalities). The results of transformation (Z matrices) process are showed in gure 2. The transformed data can now be processed using all statistical methods proposed for analyzing quantitative data. For example for this data we are interested to nd the optimal subspace for representing the wine data structure. We perform on such data a Principal component reduction (Figure 2. report the graphical representation on the rst two factorial axes of the wine data)

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Biagio Simonetti

Fig. 2. Quantication of the Q s matrices on a component: (a)First (b) Second (c) Third (d) 4th polynomial degree

Looking at the Fig.3, we can note that the PCA on the quadratic component gives a clear characterization of the factorial axis and (Fig.4) and has a better representation in term of cumulate relative importance. Note: This method can be applied only when all variables have the same number of modalities.

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An approach for the quantication of qualitative sensory variables

Fig. 3. Joint-plot of the rst two principal components on a quantication: (a)First (b) Second (c) Third (d) 4th polynomial degree

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Biagio Simonetti

Fig. 4. Cumulate relative importance of principal component on a quantication: (a)First (b) Second (c) Third (d) 4th polynomial degree

Conclusions

The principal methods proposed in literature to transform qualitative into quantitative data, assume that a gaussian distribution underlying the data. Portoso (2003) showed that the normal distribution assumption can generate non optimal and sometime distort results. The proposed methods, can be an useful tool to transform nominal and ordinal data into metric scale and do not require any function assumption about the form of the density distribution.

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An approach for the quantication of qualitative sensory variables

References
Anderson, N. H. (1970): Functional measurement and psychological judgment. In Psychol. Revue 77,153. Baird, J.C. Noma E. (1978): Fundamentals of scaling and psychophysics. In Wiley interscience, New York. Beh, E. J. (1997): Simple Correspondence analysis of ordinal cross-classications using orthogonal polynomials. In Biometrical Journal, 39,(5) 589-613. DAmbra L., Lombardo R., Amenta P. (2002): Non-symmetric Correspondence Analysis for Ordered Two-way Contingency Table. In Riunione scientica Societ` italiana di statistica 2002. a Emerson, (1968): Numerical Construction of Orthogonal Polynomials from general Recurrence Formula. In Biometrics, 24, 696-701. Gacula, M. C. (1997): Descriptive sensory analysis in practice. In Food and nutrition press, Inc. USA. Hootman,R.C. Quantitative Descriptive Analysis (QDA). Manual on descriptive analysis testing for sensory evaluation. In ed.Philadelphia. Le Calv, G. (2000): About some problem arising in sensory analysis and some e propositions to solve them. In Food Quality and preference 11 (2000) 341-347. Monrozier, R., Danzart, M. (2001). A quality measurement for sensory prole analysis. The contribution of extended cross-validation and resampling techniques. In Food quality and preference, 2001 (12). 393-406. Stone H. (1992). Acknowledgement: The participation of Biagio Simonetti to this research was supported by the PRIN 2004 grant (Resp: Prof. L. DAmbra)

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