NCBI ROFL finds the fun studies, combing the scientific literature for "Real articles. Funny subjects." Booger-picking (rhinotillexomania), accidental condom inhalation, microbiological laboratory hazard of bearded men, art discrimination in pigeons, and,

Optimizing the sensory characteristics and acceptance of canned cat food: use of a human taste panel.

"18 flavour attributes (sweet, sour/acid, tuna, herbal, spicy, soy, salty, cereal, caramel, chicken, methionine, vegetable, offaly, meaty, burnt flavour, prawn, rancid and bitter) and four texture dimensions (hardness, chewiness, grittiness and viscosity) were generated to describe the sensations elicited by 13 commercial pet food samples."

From the actual abstract of the study ,Optimizing the sensory characteristics and acceptance of canned cat food: use of a human taste panel.

...Meat chunks and gravy/gels differed significantly from each other in both flavour and texture. Cat food products differed in their liking ratings, although no differences were found between homogeneous, MC and GG samples, and eight flavour attributes were correlated with overall liking scores. It is now necessary to determine the usefulness and limits of sensory data gathered from human panels in describing and predicting food acceptance and preference behaviours in cats. For instance, while the sense of taste in cats appears generally similar to that of other mammals, they lack a sweet taste receptor (Li et al., 2006), which may limit the applicability of sweetness ratings obtained from humans....