Abstract The involvement of children in sensory evaluation and consumer research continues to increase and has become crucial in the food industry, as children sensory perceptions differ from adults. Research on basic taste sensitivity in children provides contradictory results, with most of the studies not considering the familiarity aspect of the food samples. Familiarity can lead children to memories of the food which are able to influence their taste perception and liking. This study aims to investigate the ability of 10 to 11-year old children in identifying sweetness, saltiness, sourness, and bitterness in unfamiliar food samples. The taste identification data was collected from 98 children using 19 food samples representing the four basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. For each food sample, the children evaluated their familiarity, the basic taste(s) they perceived using the check-all-that-apply (CATA) method and scored their liking. Their basic taste identification ability was investigated by comparing their results to trained panellists as a reference. The food samples were unfamiliar to most of the children (never tasted by 85% of the children on average). Correspondence Analysis (CA) showed that children were able to identify the basic tastes of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter in the unfamiliar foods, with a high congruency to the trained panellists. However, children’s identification ability was lower when combinations of dominant basic tastes occurred. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) demonstrated a positive correlation between the presence of sweet taste and the children’s liking while sour and bitter tastes showed the opposite.

中文翻译：

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10-11岁儿童识别基本口味和对不熟悉食物的喜好的能力

摘要 儿童对感官评价和消费者研究的参与不断增加，并且在食品行业变得至关重要，因为儿童的感官知觉与成人不同。对儿童基本味觉敏感性的研究提供了相互矛盾的结果，大多数研究没有考虑食物样品的熟悉程度。熟悉可以引导孩子对食物的记忆，从而影响他们的味觉和喜好。本研究旨在调查 10 至 11 岁儿童识别陌生食物样本中甜味、咸味、酸味和苦味的能力。使用代表甜味、酸味、咸味和苦味的四种基本口味的 19 种食物样品，从 98 名儿童中收集了味觉识别数据。对于每个食物样本，孩子们使用全选 (CATA) 方法评估了他们的熟悉程度、他们感知到的基本口味，并为他们的喜好打分。通过将他们的结果与作为参考的受过训练的小组成员进行比较来研究他们的基本味道识别能力。大多数儿童不熟悉食物样品（平均 85% 的儿童从未尝过）。对应分析 (CA) 表明，儿童能够识别不熟悉的食物中甜味、酸味、咸味和苦味的基本味道，与受过训练的小组成员高度一致。然而，当主要的基本口味发生组合时，儿童的识别能力较低。