Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have a project on If color effects our thought on flavor. This is the original question, Does the color of food affect whether or not we like the taste of the food? So, the instructions say to get plain yogurt then dye it various colors. Then, you have 10 people try and it and see what they think. I was going to ask, "What does it taste like"? I have to do a graph though, I'm not sure how to go about doing that. I've tried one that was a pie graph and I had it marked Yogurt answers then one was for plain then the other marked as Other for they said something else. but, it wasn't enough information. It is due in a week. I'm not sure how to make a graph that will present it better.

Part of your puzzle is your question - "What does it taste like?" isn't a graphable answer. What if one person said "Strawberry" and another said "Yogurt with food coloring"? Maybe a different question would help. What if you asked your panel to pick the one they liked the best and the one they liked the least, with the others in order in between. Or ask them to rate each of the yogurts on a scale of 1 to 10. That will give you you some numeric data which will be a lot easier to make into graphs.

Once you have your data, the format of the graph that bests presents the data might be obvious to you.

Howard

Thanks for the help! I will be doing the 1-10 idea to get numerical data. I think that a bar graph could present it if I'm correct. I think the bar graph would present it well, if I find the average for the color. If I should maybe use a different way a reply would be useful. Thanks!

I'd want to try some data sets to be sure, but you might get an interesting graph out of averaging the scores from each participant for say, the red yogurt, and graphing that next to the average score for the green and so on. Sometimes when you look at data it speaks to you and suggests a way to present it.

Howard