SENSORY ADAPTATION

Sensory evaluation makes use of the remarkable virtuosity and range of the human senses as a multi-purpose instrument for measuring the sensory characteristics of foods. The brain protects itself from an overload of information from the senses by two processes: feature extraction and adaptation. The former involves information reduction by the extraction of selected features from the environment; these form the basis for the reconstruction of the percept in consciousness. The latter, adaptation, involves the attenuation of repetitive and constant input so as not to overload the brain with redundant information.
The effects of adaptation can be observed for all senses. For the chemical senses, the effect is that a constant odor or taste stimulus will be perceived as decreasing in intensity while sensitivity to that stimulus is also decreased. For sensory evaluation, this poses problems. It means that a taste or odor has a tendency to vanish while it is being observed and that sensitivity to subsequent stimuli will be altered. Such sensitivity drift in the human instrument must be anticipated in the design of measurement procedures for the sensory evaluation of food.
For taste, adaptation changes caused by the measurement method can be seen to be largely responsible for disagreements in the literature concerning threshold and intensity measurement. Adaptation is also a contributing factor, but by no means the only one, in determining the relative discriminability of sensory difference tests. It is worth noting, however, that adaptation is not always a disadvantage; it can sometimes be used to advantage in sensory testing procedures.