Chemosensory Perception最新文献

In the present study, we assessed crossmodal associations between odors and both color and shape, with particular interest in the principles beneath these mappings. We hypothesized that visual associations of odors would primarily reflect observable features of a smelling object and thus vary with different source assumptions of the very same smell.

We asked 30 participants to visualize their odor associations on a drawing tablet, freely deciding on color and shape. Additionally, subjects provided ratings on perceptual and shape-related dimensions as well as a verbal label for each sample.

With respect to color selection, the results confirmed a source-based mapping approach: odors rated as familiar were associated with very particular colors that typically resembled the appearance of their source. For less familiar odors, color selection was rather inconsistent but still then went along with assumed odor objects. Shape ratings changed with odor identifications as well, but considerably less than for color associations. Shape ratings and shape drawings produced very different results. While shape ratings were unlikely rooted in the mental imagery of a shape, drawings frequently displayed concrete objects that depended on odor label.

Results confirm the existence of stable odor–vision correspondences and suggest that language plays a major part in mediating these mappings. The frequently assumed hedonic foundation of crossmodal matchings could not be confirmed for this stimuli set.

Odor sensations may trigger odor naming spontaneously. Assumptions about an odor’s identity, as well as the multisensory knowledge we have acquired on it, affect the visual associations of an odor.

When participants eat foods, they direct their attention to the particular taste quality that is the target of evaluation and subsequently perceive the intensity of the attended taste quality. We defined the ease with which participants pay attention to a particular taste quality as the “noticeability” of that quality. In our previous study, Japanese participants evaluated noticeability and intensity of five fundamental taste qualities (sweetness, umami, saltiness, sourness, and bitterness) under open- and closed-nostril conditions, using a popular traditional Japanese confection, yokan. The correlation between noticeability and intensity of sweetness was significantly reduced when participants were tested with open nostrils. Therefore, we hypothesized that high familiarity with a food and its olfactory information is necessary to decrease the correlation between these two scales.

In order to verify this hypothesis, we asked Japanese and German participants, who have different food cultures, to subjectively evaluate yokan, which is familiar to Japanese but unfamiliar to Germans. In a control condition, marshmallows were used which are familiar to all participants. Participants consumed each food under open- and closed-nostril conditions and evaluated the noticeability and intensity of the five fundamental taste qualities.

There were significant differences between the participants’ groups as the correlation between noticeability and intensity was reduced significantly only for sweetness of a familiar food under open-nostril condition.

These results support our hypothesis that high familiarity with a food and its olfactory information might be necessary to decrease the correlation between noticeability and intensity of a particular taste quality.

This finding suggests that perception of a food is influenced by its familiarity and retronasal aroma. These results suggest when a food is unfamiliar, the noticeability and intensity of a particular taste quality are not much altered by the retronasal aroma, but when a food is highly familiar, retronasal aroma serves to decouple noticeability and intensity of a given taste quality.

This was the first bibliometric study to investigate the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) literature on chemosensory perception to reveal who contributed to these publications, where they were published, what concepts were investigated, and their relative impact in terms of citations.

Web of Science was searched to identify relevant articles. Research areas, authors, contributing countries and territories, journals, and publication years were recorded. The full record and cited references of these articles were used for further bibliometric analyses and network visualization.

The search yielded 5200 unique authors who had contributed to 1660 articles. The authors in the co-authorship network generally had higher numbers of citations per article than those in the periphery did. The 1660 articles were published in 423 journals, and the distribution did not fulfill Bradford’s law. Articles with contributions from European countries and the USA appeared to have more citations on average relative to those from Asian countries.

The contributions came from a diverse spectrum of authors who had published in journals in multiple disciplines. Papers involving the insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and amygdala had accumulated high numbers of total citations. The hedonic aspect of chemosensory perception in particular had received many citations.

The fMRI literature on chemosensory perception provides substantial neurobiological findings from multiple authors, countries, and journals. These results offer a contemporary overview of the literature and facilitate researchers in identifying relevant papers for future references.

Olfactory dysfunction can have a negative impact on emotional well-being. The aim of the present study was to examine associations between olfactory deficits and two affective personality characteristics (trait anxiety/trait depression).

A questionnaire study was conducted with a total of 116 participants (33 classified as anosmic, 40 as hyposmic, and 39 as normosmic). All participants gave self-reports on two facets of trait depression (dysthymia, euthymia) and trait anxiety (arousal, worrying). Due to the fact that in all three groups, trait depression and anxiety were substantially correlated, analyses of covariance were conducted.

After controlling for trait depression, anosmic and hyposmic patients showed lower trait arousal compared to normosmic controls (partial η ²?=?.05). After controlling for trait anxiety, patients scored higher on dysthymia (partial η ²?=?.06).

This study underlines the importance of statistically isolating specific associations between each of these affective personality characteristics and olfactory dysfunction.

The present findings suggest that olfactory dysfunction can have opposite effects on facets of trait depression and trait anxiety.

Temperament affects olfaction in cross-sectional studies. However, it is not clear whether it is linked to olfactory development. Here we examined the links between temperament and olfaction over a nearly 2-year period, expecting that children showing higher levels of negative affectivity would exhibit greater odor awareness across repeated testing. As a subsidiary aim, we investigated whether olfactory scores differ as a function of olfactory performance at a younger age.

The participants were 73 Czech children (mean age?=?5.8?years). Their olfactory abilities were assessed using the Sniffin’ Sticks, and odor awareness was evaluated with the Children’s Olfactory Behaviors in Everyday Life Questionnaire. These were reassessed 21?months later. Mothers provided information on the children’s temperament by completing the Short Form of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire at the same interval.

Children’s temperament was not found to relate to olfactory development over a 21-month period. Odor identification and awareness, but not odor discrimination and threshold, differed as a function of scores achieved at an earlier age.

Odor identification and awareness predict themselves over a 21-month period. Links between temperament and olfaction may be only beginning to form at preschool age.

While this study suggests that temperament does not play a role in olfactory development, longitudinal studies over a broader timespan are needed to determine the robustness of this finding.

In terms of both its physiological effects as well as its impact on flavor perception, ethanol is the defining component of alcoholic beverages. While ethanol’s effect on alcoholic beverage systems has been studied across a variety of disciplines, a comprehensive review of the literature is lacking. The aim of this paper is to review the current literature on ethanol’s effect on flavor perception.

This paper reviews the literature, exploring ethanol’s effects on the areas of physiochemical properties, instrumental measurements of flavor release, and sensory evaluation across a variety of alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and distilled beverages and how changes in ethanol concentration can affect flavor perception.

Physicochemical properties such as the molecular level structure of water/ethanol matrices are significantly altered as a function of ethanol concentration. Of particular importance to flavor perception is the effect of ethanol on the release of aroma compounds into the headspace of the beverage. Both static and dynamic headspace systems have been studied. In general, increasing the concentration of ethanol decreases the volatile headspace in static systems, while it tends to increase the volatile headspace in dynamic systems. Most importantly, sensory studies have demonstrated that ethanol concentration significantly changes the flavor profile of beverages to the point where sensory panelists are able to identify and articulate these differences.

The current literature demonstrates that ethanol can have a huge impact of flavor release and sensory perception of alcoholic beverages. Additionally monitoring ethanol’s effects in systems as close to real life as possible (i.e., dynamic vs static evaluation) is important. Even with the extensive knowledge in the area, there are still many gaps in our understanding of ethanol’s effects on the flavor of alcoholic beverages.

Ethanol has been shown to have a tremendous influence on flavor release and subsequent chemosensory perception in alcoholic beverages. Changes in ethanol concentration can affect consumers’ perception of alcoholic beverages in terms of aroma, taste, and mouthfeel.

The Sniffin’ Sticks test battery is currently considered the best alternative for the measurement of olfactory threshold, discrimination and identification capabilities. These tests still suffer from limitations, however. Most noticeably, the olfactory threshold test is an intensive task which requires participants to smell a large number of olfactory stimuli. This proves especially problematic when measuring olfactory performance of elderly patients or screening research subjects, as sensory adaptation plays an important role in olfactory perception.

In the current study, we have determined that the cause of this limitation lies with the test’s single-staircase procedure (SSP). Consequentially, we have devised an alternative ascending limits procedure (ALP). We here compared data obtained using both procedures, following a within-subject design with 40 participants. Olfactory threshold scores as well as number of trials required to complete the two procedures were investigated.

The results show that the ALP provides reliable and correct olfactory threshold ratings, as the values showed a good correlation with those obtained using the SSP and mean values did not differ significantly. Task duration, however, did show a highly significant difference, completing the SSP required participants to complete over 40% more trials compared to the ALP.

The here presented methodological improvement can save time and, more importantly, reduce participants’ cognitive and sensory strain, which is not only more comfortable, but also limits the influence of adaptation, making any measured data more reliable.

Improving standard screening methods can directly enhance the reliability of any future study using this procedure.

Olfaction is a highly emotionally charged sense and contributes to our quality of life, which olfactory impairment or dysosmia thus strongly impacts. The aim of the present study was to examine how olfactory deficits alter eating behavior, which is a pillar of health and well-being.

Patients with quantitative smell impairment and control participants were asked to perform a series of chemosensory tasks: odor identification and ratings of odor intensity, pleasantness, familiarity, irritation, and edibility. They also filled out a detailed food questionnaire.

Results showed significant decrease in olfactory function in smell-impaired patients. Although no significant consequences of dysosmia were found for most aspects of food preferences and culinary habits, the patients were less attracted than controls by novel foods and tended to experience less pleasure when eating. They also used significantly more condiments such as sugar, mayonnaise, or sour cream to make their dishes tasty.

Olfactory impairment has a clear effect on certain aspects of eating behavior.

These findings highlight the compensatory mechanisms that go along with dysosmia. This also reflects the patients’ attempts to restore part of the lost flavor and its hedonic component through non-olfactory cues.

It has been challenging to select the best method to extract and analyze aroma-active compounds in wine due to high concentration of alcohols in the sample. The objectives of this study were to investigate the applicability of a LiChrolut-EN-based solid-phase extraction (SPE) for wine aroma extraction and to characterize the aroma-active compounds in Merlot wine.

Volatile compounds in a Merlot wine were extracted with Lichrolut-EN SPE or liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) followed by solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE). Both extracts were used for aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA). Selected aroma-active compounds were further quantitated and their odor activity values (OAV) were calculated.

Both SPE and LLE extracts can be used for aroma extract dilution analysis. The odorants with high flavor dilution (FD ≥?64) values in Merlot wine were ethyl 2-methylpropanoate, ethyl butanoate, ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, ethyl 3-methylbutanoate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, 3-methylbutyl acetate, 2/3-methyl-1-butanol, 2-phenylethanol, acetic acid, 2-methylpropanoic acid, butanoic acid, 3-methylbutanoic acid, hexanoic acid, β-damascenone, E-whiskeylactone, γ-nonalactone, 3-(methylthio) propanol, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, 2-ethyl-4-hydroxy-5-methyl-3(2H)-furanone, sotolon, vanillin, guaiacol, and eugenol. Quantitative analysis and calculated odor activity value (OAV) suggested that ethyl butanoate, ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, ethyl hexanoate, 3-methylbutyl acetate, ethyl octanoate, ethyl acetate, 2/3-methyl-1-butanol, butanoic acid, 3-methylbutanoic acid, hexanoic acid, β-damascenone, and acetaldehyde could be the major contributors (OAV ≥?5) to Merlot wine aroma.

Lichrolut-EN SPE was generally comparable with LLE to obtain wine aroma compounds. SPE extract had higher flavor dilution values for esters, and lower for acids and some alcohols than LLE, which is advantageous to study aroma-active compounds in alcoholic beverages due to less interferences from alcohol and acid and improved chromatography. This study confirmed the applicability of LiChrolut-EN SPE as an alternative extraction method for wine aroma characterization to improve laboratory efficiency and minimize the usage of organic solvent.