Simple improvement of consumer fit in external preference mapping

In the common implementation of external preference mapping consumer preferences are fitted as polynomial functions of the first two principal components (PCs) of the sensory data. A major weakness of the method is the relatively small number of consumers that can be significantly fitted. Several researchers have proposed to improve the consumer fit by including higher-numbered PCs in the analysis. We have explored the possibility of including higher-numbered PCs while restricting the model choice to the simplest polynomial function, i.e. the (linear) vector model. In addition, we have developed a heuristic decision rule for determining the number of PCs to keep in the fit. A practical example is discussed where the consumer fit improved from 51% (two PCs, polynomial) to 80% (five PCs, vector). (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.