The construction and prediction of psychophysical power functions for the sweetness of equiratio sugar mixtures

Abstract

Psychophysical taste mixture models describe the relationship between the perceived intensities of the unmixed components and the intensity of the mixture. Three of these models are discussed. As all of these appear either to be internally inconsistent or lack sufficient generality, a simple alternative model has been developed especially for the prediction of the intensity of equiratio mixtures. This model was experimentally tested with glucose-fructose mixtures. On the basis of the data obtained it is shown that a psychophysical equiratio mixture function can be constructed in the same way as a power function for a single compound. The results show that the new mixture model can predict the functions for equiratio mixtures with great precision. Implications for mixture interaction phenomena are discussed.