A NON-PARAMETRIC RANKING METHOD FOR THE STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF SENSORY DATA

Sensory data are rarely normally distributed and should, therefore,be statistically analyzed by non-parametric techniques. A computerprogram was devised for generating tabular data by which upto twenty samples can be compared following evaluation by asmany as seventy-five panelists. When samples are initially ranked,rank sums for each sample may be compared to appropriate entriesin the tables directly. If scalar values are assigned by panelists,the technique is still useful, but the values must first beconverted to ranks. ^*Scientific Article No. A1857, Contribution No. 4767 of theMaryland Agricultural Experiment Station (Food Science Program).