THE EFFECT OF PANEL SELECTION AND TRAINING ON EXTERNAL PREFERENCE MAPPING USING A LOW NUMBER OF SAMPLES

External preference mapping (PREFMAP) relates the preference data of a group of consumers to a multi-dimensional representation of the stimu li. This representation can be obtained from descriptive sensory data generated by a panel. Four vegetable oil samples were analysed. Three different stimulus spaces were obtained from generalized Procrustes an alysis (GPA) of descriptive sensory data generated by three panels (12 assessors): a non-selected panel, a selected panel and the latter aft er training. The preference data of each consumer was regressed agains t the product co-ordinates obtained from each stimulus space using the vector model. The interpretation of stimulus space was easier with se lected assessors, but in an overall sense the three stimulus spaces we re similar. However, the slight differences between the different sens ory spaces produced important differences in the PREFMAP interpretatio n.