Temporal aspects of yoghurt texture perception

Temporal dominance of sensations (TDS) methodology was used to study the influence of yoghurt composition on sensory texture and to compare results with those from quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA). Eight yoghurts with different texture characteristics were formulated varying fat, modified starch and gelatine concentration. A trained assessor panel evaluated yoghurt texture using QDA and TDS. TDS provided information about the sequence of attributes that were dominant during consumption. This methodology was useful to characterise yoghurt texture, providing information about the influence of the evaluated formulation variables that was not gathered by QDA; starch did not significantly increase creaminess intensity but it led to an increase in its total dominance. Differences between attribute intensity and dominance were higher for complex texture attributes which were evaluated throughout consumption, such as creaminess and mouth coating.