=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2050/odls-paper8
|storemode=property
|title=Organoleptic and Sensory Ontology
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/ODLS_paper_8.pdf
|volume=Vol-2050
|authors=Tarini Naravane,Matthew Lange
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/jowo/NaravaneL17
}}
==Organoleptic and Sensory Ontology==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/ODLS_paper_8.pdf
Organoleptic and Sensory Ontology
Tarini Naravanea,1 and Matthew Lange b
a
Biological Systems Engineering, University of California Davis
b
Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California Davis
Abstract. This abstract presents a conceptual understanding of Organoleptic
ontology and outlines the properties of food that act as stimuli evoking sensory
response; and the Sensory Ontology of the perceptions caused by the stimulus.
Keywords: Food Phenotype, Organoleptic, Sensory, Multimodal Stimulus,
Computational framework
1. Introduction
Across the world much work has been done to create food composition databases and
ontologies, often with the end goal in mind of producing a queryable data set for
meeting nutritional needs of a population [11]. At the same time, it is well established
that dietary behavior change is more likely to succeed if diet interventions provide tasty,
aromatic, and delightful alternatives. [1 2 6] Yet scant attention has been paid to
developing computable vocabularies about food capable of delineating expected
sensory experiences originating from food organoleptic properties. Organoleptic
properties of any food are best explained in the context of the Food Phenotype.
To justify the proposed relationship of Organoleptic Properties as a subset of
Phenotypic properties a brief definition is provided. Phenotype data has three main
classes: Biological, Chemical, and Physical. Biological components and properties
characterizing biological structures present in the food, as well as the physiological and
molecular bioactivity roles these ingredients may play in the organism consuming the
food, Chemical properties and components characterizing the reactability, and aroma
etc, Physical properties can be divided into several classes including Rheological
Properties, Morphological Properties, Surface Properties, Acoustic Properties,
Volumetric Properties like density, surface area, porosity and volume,
Reflective/Refractive properties like colour and transparency, Electromagnetic
properties, Thermal properties, Water Activity and absorption properties, State
properties. A detailed examination is of out of scope of this abstract. Organoleptic
properties are the characteristics resulting from the intersection of the aforementioned
Phenotypic classes detectable by electrical, mechanical, chemical, and temperature bio-
mechanisms and felt as the sensation of touch, sight, smell, taste, sound, inflammation,
and lacrimation. Hence the Organoleptic Ontology has relevance to the consumption of
food.
A basic principle in creating Ontologies is to consider existing ontologies and
harmonize with new work. As the ontologies proposed in this abstract are merely
1
Tarini Naravane, 3141 RMI, Davis CA 95616, E-mail:tnaravane@ucdavis.edu
conceptual, a thorough review of existing ontologies and vocabularies is a necessary
pre-requisite to formalizing the concept.
2. Background of Existing Food Ontologies
A brief review is provided to point out that the proposed Ontologies do not overlap
with either of the two existing Food ontologies namely; FoodON and FoodOntology.
Other Food domain ontologies and vocabularies will also be examined similarly.
FoodON [3] is a base ontology for human foods and currently covers raw
ingredients, food products and product types specifically intended to address semantic
applications in food safety, food processing and agricultural and animal husbandry
practices. In regards to food safety it covers the natural encasing of food and food
packaging. Regarding food processing it has sub classes that enumerate various heat
treatments, cooking methods, preservation techniques. A complete review of FoodON
is not in scope of the abstract but it is essential to point out the overlapping nodes with
Organoleptic properties will be considered and mapped to.
FoodOntology [11] lists the ingredients in a prepared dish. It also gives the
nutritional properties namely the vitamins, minerals and salts in a given ingredient.
Hence this Ontology does not detail the Organoleptic properties, though it is possible
that some of the Nutritional composition may have an organoleptic impact.
The Organoleptic property must be interoperable with the above ontologies as well
as PATO, Crop Ontologies, Vocabularies developed by GODAN, AGROVOC, UN’s
FAO to name a few [4].
3. Organoleptic Ontology
This Ontology details all possible organoleptic traits of an edible substance. This can
be a molecular level entity such as a protein molecule or an aromatic molecule or a
singular food like an apple or a composite food like apple pie. Hence while it may be
accepted that regardless of category, any edible entity possesses organoleptic properties,
the properties are not additive. Hence the sum of all properties of molecular
compounds in an Apple will not be the same as the organoleptic properties of an Apple
and the sum of all properties of individual ingredients in Apple Pie will not be the
properties of Apple Pie. This abstract does not attempt to explain that combinatorial
process.
The Ontology has seven top level classes of stimuli corresponding to the sensory
reaction.
• Appearance is the response to visual stimuli and includes texture, colour,
surface reflectance, size and shape.
• Touch - These are the properties of the food which can be felt by receptors in
the skin and mucous membranes. Lacrimation may occur in the presence of
syn-propanethial-S-oxide, which may be undetectable by smell or any of the
other senses. Inflammation: Similarly, the trigeminal nerve may become
inflamed for instance, from peppers when the TRPV1 responds to capsaicin, a
molecule found in varying quantities in almost all peppers. This ‘spiciness’ is
neither an odor nor a taste.
• Smell - Any food has hundreds or thousands of odor molecules of different
kinds and in different concentrations.
• Taste is the sensory experience of the taste buds and is of 5 types - Sweet,
Sour, Bitter, Salty and Spicy. A food is usually a blend of tastes, each in
different concentrations.
• Sound is the acoustic effect produced when the food is subjected to a variety
of mechanical forces.
A given stimuli might affect more than a single sense but the sensory reaction
evoked will differ. For example the texture is a physical attribute and triggers several
sensors; Chocolate mousse has the physical properties which may collectively be
termed as ‘soft’ or ‘ smooth”. It appears visually as having a soft form, it is spongy to
touch and the mouthfeel is creamy. Hence the property “Smooth” appears at three
places in the Ontology tree in Figure 1. This depiction thus presents a combinatorial
effect of stimuli as a formulaic approach to composing multisensory desired
characteristics in food. Ideally a holistic approach must also consider nutrition.
However, the compelling desire for taste has been exploited by the mass food industry
to produce food with greater emphasis on lowering costs than on nutrition. [5] reported
on the traits of taste, texture and aroma as being most influential for the decision panel
when comparing the use of egg powder as a substitute for fresh eggs in baked goods.
The motivation was to provide nutrition, lower costs, increase shelf life while catering
to a poor population not having access to fresh ingredients. Organoleptic properties of
doughnut prepared from egg powder were superior compared to fresh egg which had
better sensory traits for coconut macaroon. Another study addressing the malnutrition
of infants and young children in Indonesia analysed how the addition of Taburia, a
micronutrient powder, to foods affects the acceptability based on organoleptic
properties. [6]
4. Sensory Ontology
Sensory perception is a complex neurophysiological process which involves detection
of the stimulus and subsequent recognition and characterization of it. Flavor
perception arises from the central integration of peripherally distinct sensory
inputs; taste, smell, texture, temperature, sight, and sound of foods. This
neurophysiological integrative process is governed by factors like the physical,
psychological, emotional condition of the individual and the environmental condition
in which the individual is. Additionally, every perception is accompanied by a feeling
of like or dislike which is a constant and continuous feedback loop that updates the
individual factors mentioned previously thereby influencing future perception.
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3
Food Sound Eating Sound Crunch
Slurp
Crackle
Cooking Method Sound Pop
Boil
Sizzle
Preparation Sound Crush
Blend
Chop
Food Taste Measure Scale
Intensity
Category Sweet
Salty
Bitter
Food Visual Appearance Surface Appearance Surface reflectance
Volume Shape
Texture Coarse
Smooth
Food Tactile Sensation Tactile property at all nerve endings Coarse
Smooth
Pungency Pepper-type
Lacrimal
Mouthfeel Tannic
Aroma Category Burnt
Caramel
Grassy
Measure Concentration
Odor Recognition Value
Odor Recognition Threshold
Table 1: Schematic tabular representation of Organoleptic ontology.
The Sensory Ontology proposed here is an enhancement of the original presented
at International Conference for Biological Ontology [4]. The first version covers
perceived aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, tactile stimulus, auditory stimulus, visual stimulus,
elasticity, viscosity, electromagnetic radiation, and spiciness, and breaks these down to
the component parts. While these are the outcomes of the multimodal sensory process
and can be grouped as such, the additional high level class added to the Ontology is to
represent the affective factors; individual factors and environmental factors. The exact
relationship of the factors in determining the perception is not in scope of this paper
and neither is it fully discovered or known but it is an active area of contemporary
research and investigation and some examples are provided later in this section. At a
later stage, it would be interesting to create algorithms that combine these sensory
stimuli, sensory factors and sensory responses. Further the inverse relationship is the
objective of studies; the extent to which sensory reactions are able to provide give clues
to the well-being of the individual or the environment the individual is in.
The study conducted by Small et. al, [8] compared the responses to two solutions
delivered retronasally- a congruent and familiar Sweet Vanilla tasting solution and an
incongruent and unfamiliar Salty Vanilla solution and regions of the brain responsible
for flavor perception were observed. The perception of the congruent flavor revealed
superadditive responses compared with the sum of its constituents whereas the similar
analysis for the incongruent flavor compared negatively with the sum of its constituents.
This experiment confirmed that delivery of an unfamiliar taste-odor combination may
lead to suppressed neural responses. The paper also reported supportive findings that
odors can enhance the perceived intensity of a taste but only if the odor is perceptually
similar to the taste. Finally, odors can acquire “taste-like” properties after repeated
pairings with a taste [i.e., strawberry odor is often described as sweet even though the
odor does not activate taste receptors. Together these observations underscore the role
of experience in forming the neural representation of flavor. Another study [6] seeking
to find a strategy to reduce salt intake, reported the same finding through their
experiments, and proposed as solution the addition of salty-congruent aroma to sodium
reduced food. An example of the influence of environment on perception is easily
noticed in the case of an airplane where food tastes different because the environment
is more arid than most eating environments; the effect being that extremely cold cider
will taste sweeter, yet aromatic compounds related to quintessential “apple” flavor will
not be as easily released and not as noticeable to the consumer, as if the cider is warmer
[4].
Figure 1: Schematic diagram of sensory ontology.
Chefs have particularly explored the Sensory Ontology creatively and purposefully
for recipe development and skillfully manipulated the experience of the diner. The
trend of “Molecular Gastronomy” has demonstrated the need to understand the
phenomena and “real kitchen problems” that are empirically observed by chefs, from a
deeper scientific point of view. [10]
5. Conclusion and Future Work
The knowledge on the flavour of food has been proprietary to businesses and has been
therefore been exploited in the mass food processing industry for so long that
consumers are habituated to enjoying created flavors over the natural flavor of more
healthy foods and enjoying a greater diversity of foods. This has not only an impact on
the health of individuals but also on the economy and sustainability of specialised
agriculture. This project aims to create a multi-ontology framework connecting health
and taste, capable of delineating objective measurable characteristics of food from the
sensory experience. Specifically, the organoleptic ontology based on the molecular
structural and functional properties of food, is an endpoint for recipe creation, while
being mapped to existing ontologies that addressing health characteristics. The
Ontologies presented here will be formalised with persistent URLs and will be
published in greater detail in a subsequent paper.
References
[1] Farooqui AA, Farooqui T. Garlic and its Effects in Neurological Disorders. Neuroprotective Effects of
Phytochemicals in Neurological Disorders. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.
[2] Bagchi D, Swaroop A, Bagchi M. Genomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics in Nutraceuticals and
Functional Foods. John Wiley & Sons; 2015.
[3] Griffiths EJ, Dooley DM, Buttigieg PL, Hoehndorf R, Brinkman FSL, Hsiao WWL. FoodON: A Global
Farm-to-Fork Food Ontology - Semantic Scholar.
[4] Boulos MNK, Yassine A, Shirmohammadi S, Namahoot CS, Brückner M. Towards an “Internet of
Food”: Food Ontologies for the Internet of Things. Future Internet. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing
Institute; 2015.
[5] Chauhan VS, Sharma A. Studies on organoleptic properties of food products from fresh egg and egg
powder through principal component analysis. Nahrung. 2003;47: 102–105.
[6] Sutrisna A, Vossenaar M, Izwardy D, Tumilowicz A. Sensory Evaluation of Foods with Added
Micronutrient Powder (MNP) “Taburia” to Assess Acceptability among Children Aged 6–24 Months
and Their Caregivers in Indonesia. Nutrients. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; 2017;9:
979.
[7] Baer A, Lange M. Uc_Sense: An Ontology for Scientifically-based Unambiguous Characterization of
Sensory Experiences.
[8] Small DM, Voss J, Mak YE, Simmons KB, Parrish T, Gitelman D. Experience-dependent neural
integration of taste and smell in the human brain. J Neurophysiol. 2004;92: 1892–1903.
[9] Seo H-S, Iannilli E, Hummel C, Okazaki Y, Buschhüter D, Gerber J, et al. A salty-congruent odor
enhances saltiness: functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Hum Brain Mapp. 2013;34: 62–76.
[10] Caporaso N, Formisano D. Developments, applications, and trends of molecular gastronomy among
food scientists and innovative chefs. Food Rev Int. Taylor & Francis; 2016;32: 417–435.
[11] http://data.lirmm.fr/ontologies/food