Triangle Taste Tests: Are the Subjects who Respond Correctly Lucky or Good?

Abstract

When a triangle taste test, i.e., “Which of these three stimuli is different from the other two?”, is given twice to each subject, a natural question to ask is: “Are the subjects who got both tests correct really better discriminators than the other subjects who got 0 or 1 correct?” Surprisingly enough, the answer to this question has nothing to do with the number of subjects who got both correct, i.e., the twos. Rather, it is the ratio of the ones to the zeroes that supplies the necessary information. This information on the subject's abilities to discriminate can be used to develop a weighted voting procedure for subsequent preference tests.