Why use component-based methods in sensory science?

This paper discusses the advantages of using so-called component-based methods in sensory science. For instance, principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS) regression are used widely in the field; we will here discuss these and other methods for handling one block of data, as well as several blocks of data. Component-based methods all share a common feature: they define linear combinations of the variables to achieve data compression, interpretation, and prediction. The common properties of the component-based methods are listed and their advantages illustrated by examples. The paper equips practitioners with a list of solid and concrete arguments for using this methodology.