Evaluating and Modelling the Size Classification of Apples

✍ Scribed by Ingrid Paulus; Eddie Schrevens

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 158 KB
• Volume: 74
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8634
• DOI: 10.1006/jaer.1999.0479

✦ Synopsis

The quality of a product is a subjective, individual criterion that di!ers for each consumer. The external appearance of a fruit or vegetable is the "rst appeal in the consumer purchase process. This research investigates the human ability to classify apples into di!erent-sized ones.

In a "rst step an image analysis algorithm was developed to measure the apple size objectively. The maximal width could be estimated with an accuracy of 1 mm.

Secondly, the human quality classi"cation was evaluated by measuring the ability of a test person to reconstruct his own quality assessment and the validity of the classi"cation according to size. It appears that there was a wide range in the consistency and validity of the fruit size classi"cation by human test persons. Moreover, a conclusion was made that high consistency not necessarily induced high validity. Three di$culties in the classi"cation process concerning the human size interpretation were identi"ed by &&tree-based modelling''. Triangle tests con"rmed the di$culty to distinguish di!erent sizes.