The Changing Assessor: Adaptation, Fatigue and Sensory-Specific Satiety

By Ahmad Issam Maadarani

Ahmad Issam Maadarani treats the assessor as a participant whose condition can change during a session. He distinguishes intensity, liking and difficulty performing the task, proposing a record that tests these changes before attributing them to food quality or judging incompetence.

1. Stability is a question

An assessor may begin attentive and hungry and reach later samples in a different state. A lower score does not prove poorer food or impaired senses. The author distinguishes changes in response to repeated stimulation, declining desire for a particular food and difficulty sustaining attention or description. These name questions requiring measurement, not diagnoses inferred from a single score or facial expression.

2. Liking and intensity differ

A human experiment found a greater liking decrease for the food eaten than for other foods. [SAT81] A later study found that limited intensity changes did not explain sensory-specific decreases in liking. [SAT83] Record intensity and desire separately. These studies establish neither a universal panel break schedule nor the cause of every decline during judging.

3. What to observe

Record sample position, tasted quantity, elapsed time, intensity, liking and confidence in description. In a hypothetical example, dessert sweetness might remain similar while desire for another bite falls. A form asking only about “quality” could confound this change with a product defect. Retain task suitability independently and provide a field for reporting difficulty completing the assessment.

4. Repeated reference sample

Present a recoded reference early and later, stabilizing preparation and temperature as far as possible. Balance repeat position across participants and record intervals and quantities. Reference-score drift is a signal to investigate, not proof of one mechanism. Sample change, memory, state and food order remain competing explanations. An independent session may be preferable to unlimited retasting that increases burden and changes the question.

5. Procedure before quality

Predefine reasons to stop or defer: inability to describe, discomfort or service failure. Do not discard someone’s view solely because liking declined later. If reference and other samples drift together, review comparison validity before announcing rankings. This proposal supplies no universal rest duration; test an interval suited to the product and task and document how it was selected.

6. State record and limits

Retain time, position, quantity, intensity, liking, suitability, confidence and service incidents. Show within-person trajectories alongside overall results. The record neither diagnoses illness nor ranks assessors’ personal worth. Its potential value is making session effects visible and reviewable. It complements calibration and tasting order by asking about assessor state during measurement, with validation requiring actual comparisons between specified session procedures.

Application worksheet

The author’s analysis and proposals; examples are hypothetical and proposed procedures have not been tested here. No new experimental data are presented. Research-attributed claims remain within their source scope.

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References and source scope

1. [SAT81]Rolls, B. J., Rolls, E. T., Rowe, E. A., & Sweeney, K. (1981). Sensory specific satiety in man. Physiology & Behavior, 27(1), 137–142. DOI: 10.1016/0031-9384(81)90310-3.https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/sensory-specific-satiety-in-man/

   Human experiment concerning changes in food liking.

2. [SAT83]Rolls, E. T., Rolls, B. J., & Rowe, E. A. (1983). Sensory-specific and motivation-specific satiety for the sight and taste of food and water in man. Physiology & Behavior, 30(2), 185–192. DOI: 10.1016/0031-9384(83)90003-3.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6844432/

   Human experiment; does not set a universal rest interval.

Publication metadata and available abstracts were used; complete original texts were not fully reviewed for this edition.