2009/01/16 by J. KENNEDY, Jessica Kennedy, H. HEYMANN +1 · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Nursing · Psychology · #Sensory Analysis and Statistical Methods #Biochemical Analysis and Sensing Techniques #Color perception and design
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1745-459x.2008.00204.x
ABSTRACT Recently there has been renewed interest in the use of projective mapping to evaluate overall product similarity. Previous studies show a high degree of similarity between product maps from projective mapping and descriptive analysis techniques; however, trained panels had been used in these studies. In this study, three groups of untrained panelists performed projective mapping on a set of chocolates and then were trained and performed descriptive analysis. Principal component analysis and multifactor analysis were used to generate product maps of the descriptive analysis and projective mapping data, respectively. All six maps were visually similar, and RV‐coefficients between the six data sets were greater than 0.8. The results indicate that the use of untrained judges for the projective mapping provided equivalent product spaces as obtained by descriptive analysis for this set of products. Furthermore, the similarity among panels indicates that overall the panelists perceived the chocolates in a similar manner. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The current study indicates that projective mapping can provide equivalent product maps to those obtained by descriptive analysis. On its own, projective mapping presents an efficient method to obtain overall product differences from consumers or trained judges. In combination with a descriptive technique, projective mapping performed by consumers can provide insight as to which attributes are most important to consumers in determining product differences.