Determining the sensory characteristics, associated emotions and degree of liking of the visual attributes of smoked ham. A multifaceted study

- The smoked hams varied in sensory characteristics.
- We determined the relationship between liking and emotion scores regarding hams.
- The ham samples evoked mainly the “neutral” expressions after their consumption.
- The hams received different degrees of liking the visual attributes.

The aims of the study were to determine the sensory characteristics of hams and to evaluate consumers' sensory liking of the tested samples. Also the relation between liking and emotion before and after consumption of the products was examined. The type of emotion in respect to the hams using FaceReader (FR) has been studied. To assess the consumers' visual perceptions of the external trait the Eye tracking (ET) was used. The smoked hams varied in colour, ease of chewing, juiciness, fibrousness, tenderness, softness and certain taste/flavour attributes. The differences and disconfirmation between the expected and experienced liking of some hams could have been caused by less experienced odour, lower taste/flavour liking, disappointment and the higher expectations of some consumers. The hams received nearly the same degree of liking of their colour and consistency and significantly different level of liking of their odour and taste/flavour attributes. The ham samples elicited the largest number of “neutral” reactions (FR). The appearance liking of ham images was determined mainly by the difference in perception of fatness and colour. The visual perception (ET) was expressed as various sum of the duration of all fixations for whole areas of the slice of ham.