Improving inclusion of people with reduced intellectual abilities in consumer testing

Abstract

Nowadays, the inclusion of people with reduced intellectual abilities (PWRIA) in all areas of life is being pursued, but so far, there are no specific guides and tests for this population group to be considered while conducting consumer tests. However, consumer tests need to be adapted to be really inclusive of PWRIA in the consumer panels. The aim of this paper was to develop different methodological adaptations to promote the inclusion of PWRIA in sensory consumer tests and to test the adaptations in consumers from the PWRIA group. For this purpose, different scales commonly used in sensory science were adapted to a specific population group with reduced intellectual abilities (RIA). In addition, the utility of the adapted scales was tested by comparing the responses of this consumer group when testing a set of biscuits with those of a control group. Moreover, several modifications of standard questionnaires were tested, such as the use of alternative coding methods of the samples and the use of easy-to-read (E2R) writing rules. No evidence was found on the negative effect of using three-digit number codes in the RIA group, indicating that the specific target group used in this study does not need to replace three-digit number codes for sample identification. A skewed distribution of responses (‘benevolent bias’) was found in the evaluation of samples by the RIA group compared with the control group, indicating the use of non-parametric tests for data analysis.