Fuzzy Inference Systems to Model Sensory Evaluation

This chapter proposes a fuzzy approach to model the relationship between expert sensory evaluation and consumer preference. An induction method is used to extract qualitative knowledge from the data sample. The induction process is run under interpretability constraints to ensure the fuzzy rules have a meaning for the human expert. To gain interpretability one should tolerate a loss of accuracy. Applying the complete procedure to a food product underlines the importance of data preprocessing and demonstrates that qualitative knowledge can help to relate product attributes to consumer ratings.