## 3 Results and Discussion  
### Oral Processing Characteristics  
Regarding the number of chews and consumption time, there is a slight but not statistically significant trend of an increased number of chews and a longer duration of consumption time correlated with pungency intensity (Table 2). Opposed to this, the eating rate has a decreasing trend--the higher intensity in the sauce, the lower the eating rate (from 0.34 g/s to 0.30 g/s). The chewing rate is between 1.16 and 1.23 chews/s. However, oral processing characteristics showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the four types of samples. Table 2 presents saliva incorporation. The analysis of the samples with hot sauce showed that after 10 strokes, saliva decreases in relation to the pungency intensity in sauces. However, after 25 strokes and before swallowing, the trend switches, showing an increasing trend depending on the type of hot sauce. Saliva plays a vital role in food bolus formation for two reasons: aids cohesiveness between particles [44] and lubricates the bolus, enabling safe swallowing [37]. However, during the mastication of pungent food, salivation is a sensation that may also be observed [15]. These results clearly depict three phases in the mastication of pungent samples: the first phase when the sample is introduced in the oral cavity with limited saliva; the second phase when, due to the dilution with saliva, the sensations in the oral cavity increase, and the third phase ending with swallowing as explained in works of [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [17] and [PERSON] et al. [45]. Additionally, these findings confirm the assumptions of [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [20] that for a longer oral processing time, saliva will play an important role  
\begin{table} \begin{tabular}{c c c c c}  & **Control** & **S\({}_{\text{1}}\)** & **S\({}_{\text{2}}\)** & **S\({}_{\text{3}}\)** \\ \hline Number of chews & 46.00 \(\pm\) 24.77 & 44.92 \(\pm\) 16.4 & 48.50 \(\pm\) 19.21 & 52.25 \(\pm\) 17.38 \\ Consumption time (s) & 37.50 \(\pm\) 17.59 & 37.41 \(\pm\) 12.65 & 41.94 \(\pm\) 15.78 & 42.89 \(\pm\) 12.83 \\ Number of swallows & 2.19 \(\pm\) 0.71 & 2.44 \(\pm\) 0.81 & 2.39 \(\pm\) 0.77 & 2.50 \(\pm\) 0.81 \\ Chewing rate (chevr/s) & 1.23 \(\pm\) 0.27 & 1.20 \(\pm\) 0.24 & 1.16 \(\pm\) 0.25 & 1.22 \(\pm\) 0.19 \\ Eating rate (g/s) & 0.33 \(\pm\) 0.14 & 0.34 \(\pm\) 0.12 & 0.32 \(\pm\) 0.12 & 0.30 \(\pm\) 0.09 \\ Saliva incorporation—10 strokes (\%) & 3.96 \(\pm\) 1.63 & 4.22 \(\pm\) 2.21 & 3.63 \(\pm\) 2.19 & 3.47 \(\pm\) 1.71 \\ Saliva incorporation—25 strokes (\%) & 5.11 \(\pm\) 1.97 & 5.23 \(\pm\) 2.13 & 5.35 \(\pm\) 2.55 & 6.32 \(\pm\) 3.36 \\ Saliva incorporation—Before swallowing (\%) & 6.86 \(\pm\) 3.89 & 6.86 \(\pm\) 3.41 & 7.64 \(\pm\) 3.45 & 7.79 \(\pm\) 3.26 \\ \hline \end{tabular}  Legend: S\({}_{\text{1}}\)—Tabasco\({}^{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\text{\texttexttext{\texttexttext{      \textin hydrating and releasing pungency flavor compounds from food matrices with capsaicin. The inter-variability in salivary composition and saliva flow is mainly associated with flavor perception [46]. Spearman rank correlation was conducted using all mastication results gathered during the study (Table 3). Number of swallows has expressed significant correlation with saliva incorporation after 10 strokes (negative, r\({}_{\text{s}}\) = \(-\)0.216, _p_! 0.05) and before swallowing (positive, r\({}_{\text{s}}\) = 0.224, _p_! 0.05). The strongest correlation has been observed between chewing rate and saliva incorporation after 25 strokes (r\({}_{\text{s}}\) = 0.376, _p_! 0.01). From the results presented in Table 3, the correlation between mastication parameters and saliva incorporation after 10 strokes is between \(\mid\) 0.154 \(\mid\) and \(\mid\) 0.216 \(\mid\) and may be considered weak as opposed to saliva incorporation after 25 strokes, where the correlation is mostly very weak, except for chewing rate.