Dutch consumers do not hesitate: Capturing implicit ‘no dominance’ durations using Hold-down Temporal Dominance methodologies for Sensations (TDS) and Emotions (TDE)

In the ‘classic’ Temporal Dominance (TD) method, panellists are instructed to select a dominant attribute, which remains dominant until another attribute is selected. This procedure does not allow recording ‘no dominance (ND)’. ND periods can occur because of indecisive selection behaviour due to hesitation or uncertainty about attribute selection and time needed to switch from one attribute to another. ND periods may create noise in TD data. ND can be recorded implicitly using a ‘Hold-down’ procedure, where panellists actively hold down the attribute button that is perceived dominant, but release it when no longer dominant. The ‘Hold-down’ procedure allows subjects to report indecisive behaviour simply by not holding down a button. This study compared the ‘classic’ and ‘Hold-down’ TD methodologies. One hundred and thirty-seven participants evaluated four dark chocolates in two sessions, one for sensory (TDS) and one for emotion (TDE) evaluations. Participants employed either classic (n = 68) or Hold-down (n = 69) TD following a between subjects design. Similar dominance rates and dynamic evolutions of attributes during consumption were observed for both methods. ND durations between attribute selections were shorter than 1 s during sensory and emotion evaluations. Such short ND durations unlikely reflect periods of true hesitation, but rather reflect the time needed to switch between dominant attributes. No evidence is found for Hold-down TD outperforming classic TD in terms of sensitivity and discrimination ability. In conclusion, irrespective of the conceptual likelihood regarding the occurrence of ‘no dominance’ periods, the present study failed to demonstrate moments of hesitation using the ‘Hold-down’ procedure.