JOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES

The Journal of Sensory Studies publishes original research and review articles, as well as expository and tutorial papers focusing on observational and experimental studies that lead to development and application of sensory and consumer (including behavior) methods to products such as food and beverage, medical, agricultural, biological, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, or other materials; information such as marketing and consumer information; or improvement of services based on sensory methods. All papers should show some advancement of sensory science in terms of methods. The journal does NOT publish papers that focus primarily on the application of standard sensory techniques to experimental variations in products unless the authors can show a unique application of sensory in an unusual way or in a new product category where sensory methods usually have not been applied. Papers could address (these topics are not exhaustive): new developments in sensory (including consumer) methods, consumer and product acceptability studies that highlight unique applications of sensory methods (the focus must be on the unique aspects of the sensory application, not on the product outcome) the psychology of human sensory responses that have a practical aspect of interest to practicing sensory scientists, applications of theoretical sensory analysis constructs that lead to possible approaches to problem resolution (it must be clear how the theoretical understanding will enhance practical problem solving), external and internal validity of sensory (including consumer) panels, comparison of methods that include limitations of the methods being studied lexicon development of product categories of wide interest (please see Lawless and Civille, “Developing Lexicons: A Review”, 2013, JoSS: 28:270-281 before submitting a lexicon paper) word meanings and semantic differential technique as applied to sensory science, statistical applications that can be applied to sensory problems (Note: JoSS does not publish proprietary “black box” methods and in the case of statistical applications, practical solutions for implementing the analyses, including programs and coding if necessary, must be given) philosophies and controversies in sensory science Note: Journal of Sensory Studies accepts papers using a wide variety of published sensory methods and encourages submission of new methods where the information gained and possible validation is described. Please note that Journal of Sensory Studies does not accept papers: where the emphasis is on a comparison of products made with various treatments, except to the extent needed to highlight the sensory methods or theories being studied. For example, a paper focused on the comparison of the sensory aspects of cakes made with three types of flour will not be accepted for review. A paper using such an experiment to compare sensory methods or study statistical techniques for sensory may be considered if the focus is clearly on the sensory/statistical principles and methods comparison and not on the food science issues involved with the ingredients that use too few consumers in quantitative tests (approximately 100, although there are exceptions), nor where the consumers are not part of the target market. Papers that use students and faculty or company employees as the ‘consumers’ in the study generally are not accepted unless it is clear that they represent the intended target population. where acceptability or preference has been measured by trained or oriented panelists or experts, unless there is a clear criterion for “quality” such as a grading scale as used by government inspectors. In that case, the quality grading scale should be validated first or an explanation provided as to why this is not needed. That use instruments to measure sensory properties unless those instruments have been validated using human panelists. The journal never accepts papers that purport to “validate” human sensory experience based on an instrumental measures; the instruments must be validated by humans for sensory research, not the other way around.