Designing and testing of an Arabic version of the hedonic scale for use in acceptability tests

Abstract

Hedonic tests are routinely used in the food industry to assess the acceptance of food products. The 9-point hedonic scale has been the tool of choice for the last 50 years. However, this scale is essentially available in an English version and accordingly has been translated to several languages for use in non-English speaking countries to allow its use in different countries. This work attempted to devise an Arabic version of the 9-point hedonic scale. It consisted of three main experiments. In the first one, a list of 46 Arabic descriptors (including positive, neutral and negative words) were evaluated on a 9-point scale with 502 subjects, who were selected based on quota sampling of the Lebanese population by age and education. The subjects gave each descriptor a rating on a −4 to +4 scale. From these 46 descriptors, four different Arabic scales were developed: two 7-point scales, and two 9-point scales. In the second experiment, 95 subjects rated their acceptance of 40 non-tasted foods by using the developed scales in Experiment 1. Statistical analyses showed that one of the 9-point scales was more reliable and more sensitive than the other scales. In the third experiment, the best Arabic 9-point scale was compared to the English one by testing the acceptance of 20 non-tasted and five tasted foods with 74 panelists. Results showed that there was no significant difference between the two scales in terms of reliability and sensitivity.