Remote sensory assessment of beer quality based on visual perception of foamability and biometrics compared to standard emotional responses from affective images.

Abstract

The social isolation settings derived from the COVID-19 pandemic affected the standard sensory evaluation techniques used in the food and beverage industry. This situation forced companies and researchers to assess other options to continue conducting these tests in remote contactless locations. This study aimed to evaluate two sets of samples (i) six images from Geneva affective picture database (GAPED) and (ii) six videos of beer pouring using traditional self-reported sensory data and emotional response from consumers biometrics. Specifically, four research questions (RQ) arouse from this study: RQ1: are there significant differences between GAPED images and beers in unconscious and self-reported responses from consumers?, RQ2: are there any correlations between subconscious and self-reported responses from consumers when assessing beer?, RQ3: can consumers differentiate positive, neutral and negative images based on subconscious and self-reported responses?, RQ4: are there any relationships between subconscious and self-reported responses when assessing GAPED images and beers, and how are samples associated with variables? A total of 113 Mexican beer consumers participated in the virtual sensory session using an online videoconference software to record videos of participants during the session. Results showed there were significant differences (p < 0.05) between samples, especially for self-reported responses (RQ1), and several correlations between variables, such as positive correlations between the perceived quality of beers and happy emoji (r = 0.84), and negative correlation with confused emoji (r = -0.97; RQ2). Besides, using the proposed methods, consumers were able to correctly differentiate through elicited emotions the positive, neutral and negative GAPED images (RQ3). Regarding RQ4, several relationships were found between variables in both GAPED images and beers; however, it was found that different emotions were elicited depending of the stimuli used. The proposed method showed to be a reliable and practical option to conduct visual and potentially tasting sensory tests in isolation and recruit participants from different countries without travelling to collect their responses.