Recommendations for use of balanced presentation order of terms in CATA questions

•Results obtained using CATA questions with two presentation order of the terms were compared.•No major differences in the sensory product characterizations were observed.•Orders balanced both between and within participants are recommended in most cases.•For CATA questions with ∼50 terms, balancing term order only between participants may acceptable.

Balancing presentation order of the terms of a CATA question between and within participants has been recommended to minimize the influence of primacy bias on consumer responses and maintain their attention throughout the task. Compared to balancing presentation order only between participants, this experimental factor may make the task more difficult/tedious for participants and shift their attention away from the sensory characterization task with possible detrimental effects for sample discrimination. The aim of the present work was to compare sensory product characterizations obtained using CATA questions in which presentation order of the terms was balanced between participants with those obtained using CATA questions in which presentation order of the terms was balanced both between and within participants. Nine studies with 1028 consumers involving different product categories were conducted. Between-subjects experimental designs were used in all studies. No major differences were found in the sensory product characterizations obtained using presentation orders balanced between participants (BB) and both between and within participants (BW).