Hedonic rating using human bivariate conceptualization

Bivariate conceptualization, a new human conceptualization process, was recently proposed. Research about bivariate conceptualization has shown the bivariate relationship and the coexistence of positivity and negativity in the measurement of human attitudes and emotions. However, many scales for the consumer acceptance test, such as the 9-point hedonic scale, the food action rating scale, the labeled affective magnitude scale, and the hybrid hedonic scale were developed using the traditional bipolar conceptualization. Sensory scientists have continued to use bipolar conceptualization and have shown a lack of understanding about bivariate conceptualization theory. The central hypothesis of this research is that consumer acceptance testing that utilizes scales that were developed based on the bivariate conceptualization process will separate liking and disliking percepts, and thereby provide supplementary interpretation regarding consumer acceptance and preferences. The objectives are to: 1) determine the correlation between measurements of liking and disliking with food products, 2) compare the bipolar and bivariate measurements of liking and disliking, 3) investigate the scale presentations (monadic scale presentation (MSP), evaluative space grid (ESG), and consecutive scale presentation (CSP)), and 4) investigate consumer beliefs concerning why they use bivariate or bipolar conceptualization for their evaluation for percepts of liking and disliking certain products. The correlation coefficients from the consumer acceptance tests failed to demonstrate bipolarity between percepts of liking and disliking in the evaluation of food products. Subjects tended to have a bivariate conceptualization when evaluating food products. Statistically, the bipolar and bivariate measurements were similar in sample discrimination performance. Bivariate measurements could demonstrate supplementary interpretations of consumer acceptance and preference by demonstrating consumer preferences of liking and disliking toward certain samples distinctively. To solve the drawback of bivariate measurement -the sample preparation and testing time problem, the traditional method (MSP) was compared to new scale presentation methods (ESG and CSP), which required the same amount of sample preparation when compared to the 9-point hedonic scale. The results suggest that the ESG and the CSP were comparable to the MSP. Qualitative research was conducted to investigate how subjects used the bivariate and bipolar scales. The results from the open-ended questions revealed that subjects used both the liking and disliking unidirectional scales when they perceived both liking and disliking percepts with regard to the samples, and either the liking or disliking unidirectional scale when percepts of liking or disliking in the foods were predominant. The bipolar scale was easy to use, but could not explain the perception for both liking and disliking in the study. The bivariate scale can solve this ambivalent issue