INFLUENCE OF FAMILIARITY ON ACCEPTABILITY OF FISH PATES - A COMPARISON BETWEEN CHILDREN AND ADULT CONSUMERS

Evaluation of preference and familarity of six ''fish pates'' varying in fish species and in flavouring was carried out with sixty children 7-9 years old (thirty girls and thirty boys) and sixty adults 18-60 ye ars old (thirty women and thirty men). Preferences were evaluated by p air tests and by ratings on a hedonic scale. Familiarity was evaluated by pair tests. For each measurement, a balanced incomplete design was used. For each pair of products, the children were asked which produc t had the stranger flavour and the adults which had the more familiar flavour. For preferences, a strong relation between the results of the two methods was found for children (r(S) = 0.94; p = 0.004) but not f or adults (r(S) = 0.77; p = 0.072). Moreover, for children, the discri mination between products was higher with hedonic ratings than with pa ired comparisons. Thus this study provides a further justification for the use of a hedonic face scale with young children to rate acceptabi lity. The preferences were the same for the children and the adults, b ut children tend to elicit more clear cut dichotomization;tuna ''fish pates'' were prefered to mackerel ''pates''. The more familiar product was not the same for young children and adults. In addition, there we re more differences in familarity in ''fish pate'' among children than adults. To the children, tuna ''fish pates'' were more familiar than ''mackerel pates''. To the adults, ''fish pates'' without flavoring we re more familiar than ''fish pate'' with flavoring. This difference be tween children and adults could be explained by the fact that mackerel is not often consumed by young children. Finally a strong relationshi p between familiarity and preference was observed for the children's g roup (r(S) = -1 p = 0.001) but not for the adult's group (r(S) = 0.71; p = 0.111).