Abstract
It is generally believed that food palatability can be attributed to such sensory characteristics as the taste, aroma, texture, appearance, temperature, and sound. However, few studies have evaluated the contribution of each sensory characteristic to food palatability. A list of properties dealing with food palatability was prepared and applied to ten food items. Six sensory characteristics were then compared with regard to their contribution to food palatability. Texture and taste were confirmed to be the two strongest contributors. Although the difference between these two was generally undetectable, texture-related properties were rated the highest in many food items. Comparing solid foods and liquid foods, texture played a more important role than taste in solid foods, while taste contributed more in liquid foods. The appearance and aroma ranked third after texture and taste. Appearance contributed less in this study than in the results obtained from the literature, and sound was confirmed to contribute the least, as had been expected.