Assessment of the agreement and cluster analysis of the respondents in a CATA experiment

• Published in: Food quality and preference Vol. 77; pp. 184 - 190
• Main Authors: Llobell, Fabien, Giacalone, Davide, Labenne, Amaury, Qannari, El Mostafa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2019; Elsevier
• Subjects: Agreement; Atypical subjects; case studies; CATA experiment; Chemical and Process Engineering; Cluster analysis; Engineering Sciences; Food engineering; food quality; Life Sciences; Permutation test; questionnaires; Segmentation; Cluster analysis; Agreement; Atypical subjects; Segmentation; CATA experiment; Permutation test
• ISSN: 0950-3293; 1873-6343
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodqual.2019.05.017

•Strategies to investigate the agreement among respondents in a CATA experiment are discussed.•Permutation tests are set up to assess the consistency of the respondents for each attribute.•A strategy of segmenting the respondents while setting aside those who are atypical is introduced. Statistical tools to assess the agreement of respondents in a Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) experiment are discussed. An overall index of agreement is introduced and a hypothesis test to assess the significance of this index is outlined. A similar investigation at the level of each attribute is undertaken. The permutation test proposed in this latter situation can be compared to Cochran’s Q test. We also propose to cluster the respondents while setting aside those respondents that are deemed to be atypical. This strategy of clustering stands a refinement of the cluster analysis called CLUSCATA that was introduced in a previous paper. The various strategies of analysis are illustrated by means of real case studies.