Judges were required to rate the total intensity of NaCl solutions and the sweetness of orange flavored beverages using a variety of unstructured category and line scales. Discrimination errors were noted for each type of scale. No strong differences were observed in discrimination between category and line scales although a 20-point category scale incurred fewer discrimination errors than 9-point category and line scales. Allowing judges to retaste stimuli and review and modify their scores reduced discrimination errors.

Judges were required to rate the total intensity of NaCl solutions using a variety of unstructured category and line scales under a ‘rank‐rating’ protocol and a traditional protocol that did not allow retasting or the reviewing of scores. The various scales and protocols induced two types of scaling errors. The first type was named a different‐stimulus error. This involved a judge rating a stronger stimulus as equal to or less than a weaker stimulus. The second type was named a same‐stimulus error. This involved a judge giving different ratings to two stimuli of equal concentration. For all scales, judges made a higher proportion of same‐stimulus errors than different‐stimulus errors. ‘Rank‐rating’ only reduced the proportion of different‐stimulus errors. It was hypothesized that a category scale with fewer categories would induce a higher level of different‐stimulus errors but lower level of same‐stimulus errors. These trends were noted but not always significantly. For line scales, the equivalent hypotheses regarding line length were either weak or not supported. It would appear that increasing the length of a line scale is not always equivalent to increasing the number of categories in a category scale.

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