COMPARISON OF CONSUMER PANELS IN PAIRED PREFERENCE TEST. II 385 Key Word Categories Past experience with consumer responses to written or oral open-end questions about foods and beverages demonstrated that the various terms consumers use fall into fewer than ten categories. In the case of carbonated beverages, mention will be made of the amount of carbona- tion, the level of sweetness, the type of flavoring, color and sediment (if any), size of the container, and like or dislike (3). For dried soup, the mother will comment on ease of use, homemade flavor or richness, salt level, texture of solids, and generalities (4). The categories of com- ments about foods and beverages can usually be segregated as follows: general comments of comparison or like or preference nonflavor com- ments on use properties, texture, appearance and flavor comments on the type of flavor, the level of flavor, and specific flavor integers (e.g., off-taste, sweetness) or flavor impressions (e.g., filling, not satisfying). Similarly, consumer responses in this toothpaste test fell into one general, one nonflavor, and five flavor categories which are presented and defined in Table II. General comments are not descriptive of the products. Nonflavor comments refer to physical properties observed during use of the tooth- pastes. The flavor comments, it will be noted, show some overlap. For example, sensory impact (in No. 4) and hot factor (No. 5) could be the same integers aftertaste (No. 6) and clean-not clean (No. 7) cer- tainly are related. But in order to keep the data intact, for first-round interpretation at least, the coding procedure avoided overlaps. Tone of Key Word Comments In reading the response sheets from both panels it became evident that the R-preferrers saw the issues between the two toothpastes differ- ently from the W-preferrers, as is often the case in paired testing. Table II Key Words for Terms Used by the Consumers 1. General (nondescriptives) 2. Non-flavor 3. Flavor type 4. Flavor level 5. Hot factor 6. Aftertaste 7. Clean or not clean feel in mouth Like, prefer, better than... Whitening, sudsing, texture Kind of flavoring (mint, candy) Flavor impression (antiseptic, odd) Distinctness of flavoring Sensory impact Bite, burn, peppery After brushing tastes, feelings, and duration of same Impressions during or after brushing

386 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS Therefore, the data were analyzed separately according to preference. It was possible by reading the responses to discern and key punch the tone of the comments, i.e., whether a comment was positive or negative. For example: "R had a long aftertaste, W was too hot" would be punched positive for R's aftertaste and negative for W's hot factor. In addition, the response sheets usually showed a major reason in one of the seven key word categories for the preference voted and it was then possible to tally the positive and negative major reasons. This tally showed a situation that users of consumer tests are in dread of obtaining: In both panels, the R-preferrers mostly voted against Sample W, while the W-preferrers voted in favor of Sample W. That is, 56% local and 61% national R-preferrers gave negative major reasons about Sample W in backing up their preference vote and 70% local and 67% national W-preferrers gave positive major reasons for preferring Sample W. This situation presents the problem of a statistically significant prefer- ence trend based on the negative attitude toward the nonpreferred sam- ple of the pair. The problem is: Did the R-preferrers really like R but Table III Over-all Hedonic Scores About R About W Local National Local National Average 3.61 8.29 2.90 2.92 Sigma q- 1.07 q- 1.06 q- 1.28 q- 1.18 Table IV Hedonic Scores According to Preference Vote R-Preferrers About R About W Own brand Local National Local National Local National Average 4.06 3.77 2.21 2.14 4.31 4.01 Sigma q-0.76 q-0.66 4-0.95 4-0.84 4-0.81 4-0.77 W-Preferrers About W About R Own brand Local National Local National Local National Average 4.01 4.11 2.72 2,47 4.10 4.00 Sigma q-0.97 q- 0.73 q-0.97 q-0.91 q-0.81 q-0.80