FLASH PROFILING

WHAT IS FLASH PROFILING?

Flash profiling is a sensory analysis method which combines a free profile technique (free choice of attributes) with a ranking of products for each attribute. Faced with a set of products, untrained assessors choose their own terms to describe and distinguish the main sensory differences between the different products. These same assessors then rank the products for each of the attributes they have chosen.
The advantage of Flash Profiling is that it does not require assessors to be trained as they are only asked to rank the products on an ordinal scale for each of the attributes. This is different from a free profile data analysis where assessors have to rate the intensity of the different attributes.

FLASH PROFILING OUTPUTS IN XLSTAT

The ANOVA Summaries table shows the different p-values of the various ANOVAs by attribute, and thus highlights the differences perceived by the assessors between the different products and their discrimination. The attribute must be present at least twice in the dataset for the ANOVA to be performed.

Afterwards, the results of the MFA are displayed. First, eigenvalues, attribute results, and product results are displayed. The coordinates of the projected points in the space resulting from the MFA are displayed. The projected points correspond to projections of the products in the spaces reduced to the dimensions of each assessor. The representation of the projected points superimposed with those of the complete products makes it possible to visualize the diversity of the information brought by the various assessors for a given product and the relative distances from two products according to the various assessors at the same time.