MULTIPLE PHYSICAL PATTERNS IN JUDGMENTS OF THE CREAMY TEXTURE OF MILKS AND CREAMS

The textural sensation generated by dairy creams and milks in the mout h was hypothesized to arise from mechanoreceptor stimulation by the vi scosity of these oil-in-water emulsions and features arising from char acteristics of the globules of fat. The viscosity, range of sizes of t he fat globules and the average distance between globules were varied independently in dairy emulsions and samples rated for creaminess by s ix assessors. In this brief report, each assessor's performance is tes ted for multidimensional combinations of discriminations among viscosi ties, globule-size ranges and interglobule distances. Those individual s whose judgements of creaminess were sensitive to these physical vari ables appeared to differ greatly in the factors on which they based th eir judgements. This also depended on whether a high-fat milk or a lig ht cream was used as the standard for comparison. Subject to confirmat ion of the stability of the discrimination space for an individual usi ng a standard, it is preliminarily concluded that recognition of the p hysical properties of fat in dairy emulsions is highly idiosyncratic, perhaps indicating that it has to be learned.