Temporal aspects of hedonic and intensity responses

The present study investigated temporal aspects of hedonic responses. The focus was on the hedonic response in itself and on the time-course of the hedonic response as compared to the intensity response. Analogously to time–intensity (TI) scaling, we used temporal scaling for intensity and pleasantness aspects of taste. Twenty four subjects were instructed to focus on and continually rate either the intensity or the pleasantness of three different concentrations of an orange lemonade stimulus in a within-participants design. As was expected, the latency and the time to maximum of the intensity response were shorter than the latency and time to maximum of the hedonic response. Unforeseen, the intensity response lasted longer than the pleasantness response. These results suggest that initially the processing of the intensity and pleasantness aspects is in serial and later on may be in parallel. Our study confirms that, as was suggested by Taylor and Pangborn [Journal of Sensory Studies 4 (1990) 241–247], time–hedonic scaling can be performed.