The preference for ice cream is influenced by its taste, flavor, and coldness as well as texture. We prepared three samples with the same ingredients but varying ice grain sizes and conducted research on how this affect sensory properties and emotional responses during eating. First, we performed a descriptive analysis (DA) (n=8), time intensity (TI) analysis (n=9) and a preference analysis (n=31) to elucidate the sensory properties of the three samples,. Subsequently, we investigated how individual emotions transit by conducting a temporal dominance of emotions (TDE) analysis using a semi-Markov chain. The results indicated that samples with larger ice grain sizes strongly evoked characteristics related to cool feeling, and induced emotions such as freshness and pleasantness. In contrast, samples with smaller ice grain sizes showed high values for terms related to flavor intensity, such as caramel, which were associated with feelings of satisfaction.
Kuroda et al. (Tue,) studied this question.