USING FUNCTIONAL DATA ANALYSIS (FDA) METHODOLOGY AND THE R PACKAGE "fda" FOR SENSORY TIME-INTENSITY EVALUATION

Measuring and analyzing time-intensity (T-I) of sensory attributes is an important subject of sensory analysis. This paper proposes using functional data analysis (FDA), an emerging field in statistical research, as a new strategy and framework for sensory T-I data analysis. This paper discusses and illustrates how to apply the well-developed FDA techniques and use the available R package fda to analyze sensory T-I data. The analyses include data smoothing, descriptions of functional data, functional regression analysis, functional analysis of variance and permutation tests of functional hypotheses (functional F-tests and t-tests). Some conclusions about applications of FDA to sensory T-I data are reached.