GB/T 22366-2022 Active

This document provides guidance on using the three-alternative forced-choice (3-AFC) method to measure olfactory, gustatory, and flavor responses to stimuli, and on processing the data to estimate thresholds, error estimates, and other statistical procedures related to detection.
The methods described in this document are applicable to either of the following two scenarios (most experiments will include both scenarios).
a) Determining the sensitivity of evaluators to specific stimuli: primarily used in studies of individual or group differences in sensitivity, as well as studies of the effects of age, gender, physiological state, disease, drug effects, and environmental conditions on sensitivity.
b) Detecting the characteristics of sensory responses to chemical substances, primarily including the following five aspects:
——Studies of flavor chemistry and the effects of specific chemicals on food flavor;
——Classifying chemicals based on their effects on humans in the current environment;
——Studies of the correlation between the molecular structure of chemicals and their stimulating capacity;
——Quality assurance of emitted gases, water, and food and beverages;
——Studies of olfactory-related mechanisms.
In the above scenarios, since the probability of evaluators making correct choices changes with the intensity of the stimulus, the analysis of this change, namely the analysis of the slope of the dose-response (effect) relationship curve, is also an important research topic in addition to threshold measurement. This document provides relevant information on this aspect in the data processing procedures described herein.
The core of this document is data acquisition and calculation procedures. For the validity of the data, this document only provides general rules and precautionary measures. This document does not strictly distinguish between "detection threshold" and "difference threshold". In fact, the methods