Future directions in sensory and consumer science: Four perspectives and audience voting

The 11th Pangborn Sensory Science Symposium, which took place in Gothenburg (Sweden), in August 2015 ended with a plenary session where areas of direction for future research in sensory and consumer science were suggested by four speakers. Within their chosen topic the speakers presented three statements which the audience voted on (ranking task) in terms of importance for the future of the field. On the topic of understanding individual variation in sensory perception, the statement endorsed as most important was: “We must engage with other specialists, e.g., geneticists and neuroscientists, to understand the mechanism behind individual variation in perception”. With regard to the role of context and situation in future research and the top ranked statement for this topic was: “We must increase the number of real-life consumer studies for more ecological validity”. With regard to consumers' decision making processes, the statement endorsed as most important was: “We must develop new methodological approaches to understand the heuristics that influence food choice”. Finally, on the topic of future sensory and consumer research in industry, the top ranked statement was: “We must better capture consumer responses in context (at the moment, in the environment, etc.).” Three broad themes emerged: increasing the ecological validity of sensory and consumer research, doing inter-disciplinary research and accounting for individual differences (perception and decision making). These coincide with the trend from past decades towards a broadening of this science domain.