Psychophysical Relationship between Sweetness and Redness in Strawberry-Flavored Drinks

Abstract

Extract: A consumer-like taste panel of 10 men and women (ages 22-50)evaluated the sweetness, pleasantness and color acceptability of5 sweetened, strawberry-red colored beverages (containing 3.2-4.8%sucrose) using magnitude estimation. Five intensities of strawberrycolors were formulated using increasing volumes of FD&C Red 40 anda constant volume of both FD&C Yellow 6 and imitation strawberryflavoring. Color measurements from a colorimeter and a spectrophotometerwere converted to the value arctan. Sensory responses were evaluatedagainst the value arctan, representing color intensity, and sucroseconcentration, as percentage of sugar. Sweetness perception increasedwith increasing sucrose concentration, with a slope greater than2.00, but produced an exponent less than 1.0 when evaluated againstarctan. Sweetness increased approximately 2 to 12% with increasingcolor intensity in 4% sucrose solutions. Perceived sweetness wasinfluenced by pleasantness effects and color acceptability. Color3 samples were rated as the sweetest, most pleasant-tasting drinks,and had the most acceptable color. The color-sweetness function waslinear over a narrow color range. (author/wz)