Liking and exposure: First, second and tenth time around

The future liking may be poorly predicted from hedonic ratings in first exposure. The stability of hedonic ratings as a function of differences in number of exposures was studied. 80 subjects (70 females; age = 17–59 years, mean = 25.5 years, S.D. = 6.7 years) performed hedonic rating of 9 different stimuli (vanilla-flavored yogurts), all of which were different in sensory properties. Yogurts varied systematically in three experimental factors: total protein, sugar and vanilla flavor concentration. In first exposure, yogurts high in sweetness and with low vanilla intensity were rated as most liked. Subjects were divided in two equal groups of 40 persons and exposed to the stimuli different numbers of times: two and ten. There were no significant differences in changes of liking ratings between the two groups. Results indicate that liking of yogurts, traditionally eaten for breakfast in Denmark, measured by groups is relatively stable over exposures. However, summarizing results over groups covers that there are large individual differences in changes of liking ratings. 11.6% of the 720 analyzed changes in liking ratings were larger that 7.5 cm, corresponding to half the size of the scale.