COMPARISONS OF VOLATILE COMPOUNDS RELEASED DURING CONSUMPTION OF A COMPLEX FOOD BY DIFFERENT ASSESSORS WITH EXPRESSIONS OF PERCEIVED FLAVORDETERMINED BY FREE-CHOICE PROFILING

Comparisons of volatile compounds released during consumption by diffe rent assessors with individual differences in the assessors' chewing p atterns, saliva production rates and ultimately their expressions of p erceived flavor have received little research attention to date, altho ugh such comparisons are fundamental to the understanding of flavor. T o address this, eight untrained assessors were chosen and each consume d sir Cheddar cheeses during Buccal Headspace Analysis of the volatile compounds released, while in parallel measures of each assessor's mas tication behavior using Electromyography, their stimulated saliva prod uction during consumption and their sensory perceptions of the cheeses flavor during Free Choice Profiling were determined. Relationships be tween the volatile compounds released and the sensory and physiologica l measures were investigated using Principal Components Analysis, Gene ralised Procrustes Analysis and Partial Least Squares regression. It w as found that although there were differences between assessors' masti cation behavior and saliva production rates, the assessors' individual volatile profiles obtained by Buccal Headspace Analysis were similar for each cheese examined. Also, Partial Least Squares was successful i n predicting the most important flavor differences between cheeses fro m the volatile compounds released during their consumption by differen t assessors.