Introduction

Olfactory habituation results from prolonged exposure to an odor, leading to perceptual changes defined by several characteristics. To date, human habituation research has focused on orthonasal olfaction which is perceived externally while ignoring internal routes of odor perception related to flavor. In our study, we conducted two experiments to characterize retronasal olfactory habituation and measured its impact on flavor perception.

Methods

In Experiment 1, participants were presented a food odor and non-food odor retronasally, using an orally adhered strip. Each participant rated the odor intensity using a time-intensity procedure. After exposure, the participants ate a lime-flavored gummy and rated the lime flavor. In experiment 2, the same procedure was performed for a low-level lime odor, a simple (lime oil) and complex (lime oil + sucrose + citric acid) beverage as the flavor stimuli.

Results

Our results demonstrated two known principles of habituation for retronasally presented odors: (1) prolonged exposure leads to decreased perception and (2) weaker stimuli lead to more rapid habituation. Additionally, we found that the non-food odor habituated slower than the food odor; however, the participants seemed to recover simultaneously upon food and beverage consumption leading to no change in flavor perception.

Conclusion

The findings of this study give evidence that we habituate to different odors at different rates; more specifically, we provide evidence that differentiates between odor origin and concentration.

Implications

This is the first time-intensity characterization of retronasal odor habituation. Additionally, a novel method of administering retronasal odors is presented.

中文翻译：

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鼻后习性：时间强度表征和对风味感知的影响。

介绍

长时间接触气味会导致嗅觉习惯，导致几种特征定义的知觉变化。迄今为止，人类习惯性研究集中于从外部感知的正交嗅觉，而忽略了与风味相关的气味感知的内部途径。在我们的研究中，我们进行了两个实验来表征鼻后嗅觉习惯并测量其对风味感知的影响。

方法

在实验1中，使用口腔粘连带向参与者向后展示了食物异味和非食物异味。每个参与者使用时间强度程序对气味强度进行评级。接触后，参与者吃了石灰味的软糖，并对石灰味进行了评分。在实验2中，对低水平的石灰气味，简单的（石灰油）和复杂的（石灰油+蔗糖+柠檬酸）饮料作为风味刺激剂执行了相同的步骤。

结果

我们的研究结果表明，对于向后出现的气味，习惯性习惯的两个已知原理是：（1）长时间暴露会导致知觉降低；（2）刺激力减弱会导致较快的适应性。另外，我们发现非食物气味习惯于慢于食物气味。然而，参与者似乎在食用食物和饮料后会同时恢复，从而不会改变风味。

结论

这项研究的结果提供了证据，证明我们习惯于以不同的速率产生不同的气味。更具体地说，我们提供了区分气味来源和浓度的证据。

含义

这是鼻后气味适应的首次时间强度表征。另外，提出了一种管理鼻后气味的新方法。