Sequence effects in hedonic judgments of taste stimuli

Abstract

Sequential dependencies in taste research may be different from those obtained in other modalities, due to the long interstimulus intervals and the intermediate rinses. In two experiments, subjects judged the pleasantness of 50 aqueous solutions on 150-mm line scales. During data analyses pseudo-sequence effects arose because data were aggregated over individuals and because the first trials of the experimental sessions deviated from the rest. After correcting for the pseudo-sequence effects, robust regression analyses revealed small but significant sequential dependencies. The current response deviation was positively related to previous response deviations and negatively related to previous subjective, internal representations.