Patent ID: 6623040
Filing Date: 2003-09-23
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
A method for determining forced-choice preference information, said method comprising:obtaining a test group, said test group comprising a plurality of human test subjects; providing each of said test subjects with two or more test samples; causing each of said test subjects to sample each of said two or more test samples; obtaining from each of said test subjects hedonic test data indicative of how well each of said test subjects liked each of said test samples, wherein said hedonic test data comprises overall-liking values assigned by each of said test subjects to each of said test samples; and processing the hedonic test data from all of said test subjects to determine at least one predicted forced choice preference result, said at least one predicted forced choice preference result being indicative of the likelihood that a test subject would select one of said test samples over another of said test samples in a forced choice comparison of a pair of said test samples, wherein said processing comprises: of said pair of test samples, determining a stronger test sample and a weaker test sample; for each of said test subjects, determining an overall-liking difference value, the overall-liking difference value for a given test subject being determined based on the overall-liking value said given test subject assigned to the stronger test sample minus the overall-liking value said given test subject assigned to the weaker test sample and falling within a range of possible overall-liking difference values which may each occur a number of times; for each possible overall-liking difference value, determining the number of occurrences of the possible overall-liking difference value; for each possible overall-liking difference value, multiplying the number of occurrences of the possible overall-liking difference value by a probability coefficient to determine a corresponding subset number for each possible overall-liking difference value, the subset number representing the number of test subjects in a correlative, proportionate subset of the test subjects yielding the possible overall-liking difference value that would choose the stronger test sample over the weaker test sample in a forced choice comparison of the two test samples; and totaling the subset numbers corresponding to each of the possible overall-liking difference values to determine the total number of test subjects who would choose the stronger test sample over the weaker test sample in a forced choice comparison of the two test samples.