Response selection, sensitivity, and taste-test performance

Tasters selected the odd stimulus from among sets of three samples of party dip. Two samples came from one batch, and one sample came from another batch. The physicochemical difference between the batches consisted of the presence or absence of added salt. Two different tests of discriminability were undertaken by the same subjects with the same stimuli: the triangle test and the three-alternative forced-choice (3-AFC) method. Although different numbers of correct selections were obtained in the two tasks, an index of discriminability, d', had the same value when the data were analyzed in accordance with the Thurstone-Ura and signal-detection models, respectively. The average data support Frijters's (1979b) contention that different models of the discrimination process are appropriate to the results of the triangular and the 3-AFC procedures. Further analysis of the data revealed that discrimination was poorer for trios containing one physicochemically weak stimulus and two stronger stimuli than it was for trios containing one stronger stimulus and two weak stimuli. A two-signal 3-AFC task was undertaken by some subjects, and d' estimates from this task were lower than expected on the basis of performance in the other tasks.