Kinesthetic engagement in Gestalt evaluation outscores analytical 'atomic feature' evaluation in perceiving aging in crystallization images of agricultural products

PLoS One. 2021 Mar 15;16(3):e0248124. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248124. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in a systemic approach to food quality. From this perspective, the copper chloride crystallization method is an interesting asset as it enables an estimation of a sample's 'resilience' in response to controlled degradation. In previous studies, we showed that an ISO-standardized visual evaluation panel could correctly rank crystallization images of diverse agricultural products according to their degree of induced degradation. In this paper we examined the role of contextual sensitivity herein, with the aim to further improve the visual evaluation. To this end, we compared subjects' performance in ranking tests, while primed according to two perceptional strategies (levels: analytical vs. kinesthetic engagement), according to a within-subject design. The ranking test consisted out of wheat and rocket lettuce crystallization images, exhibiting four levels of induced degradation. The perceptual strategy imbuing kinesthetic engagement improved the performance of the ranking test in both samples tested. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the training and application of such a perceptual strategy in visual evaluation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Crystallization
  • Edible Grain / chemistry
  • Food Analysis* / methods
  • Food Quality*
  • Humans
  • Lactuca / chemistry
  • Triticum / chemistry
  • Visual Perception

Grants and funding

All authors (JF, MA, RB, NB, UG, PD, GM, CS) worked on a joint research project funded by the Software AG Foundation (https://www.sagst.de). The Software AG Foundation had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.