Temporal aspects of perception

In the foregoing we loosely talked about the intensity of a sensory attribute for a given sample, as if the assessors perceive a single (scalar) response. In reality, perception is a dynamic process, and a very complex one. For example, when a food product is taken in the mouth, the product disintegrates, emulsions are broken, flavours are released and transported from the mouth to the olfactory (smell) receptors in the nose. The measurement of these processes, analyzing and interpreting the results and, eventually, their control is of importance to the food 

There have also been attempts to describe the temporal aspects of perception from first principles, the model including the effects of adaptation and integration of perceived stimuli. The parameters in the specific analytical model derived were estimated using non-linear regression [14]. Another recent development is to describe each individual TI-curve,/j(r), i = 1, 2. n, as derived from a prototype curve, S t). Each individual Tl-curve can be obtained from the prototype curve by shrinking or stretching the (horizontal) time axis and the (vertical) intensity axis, i.e. fff) = a, 5(b, t). The least squares fit is found in an iterative procedure, alternately adapting the parameter sets (a, Zi, for 1=1,2. n and the shape of the prototype curve [15], 

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