USING A MODIFIED MOUSE TO READ DATA FROM NONSTRUCTURED LINE SCALES
Ricardo Sánchez, Guillermo Hough · Journal of Sensory Studies · 1997
ABSTRACT Nonstructured line scales (NLS) are widely used in sensory and consumer research, normally generating a large amount of data to be introduced to computers for statistical analysis. This process can be very much accelerated with the use of special hardware and software. Available systems are efficient but costly. To overcome this last item a standard mouse was modified to be used as a measuring instrument, and a simple QBASIC program was developed to input the measured data into an ASCII file. The cost of the modified mouse was $60, and data input was 5 times faster than measuring distances with a ruler. Experiments designed to test the mouse showed that error measurements were small.