Introduction

Experts acquire superior abilities in their specific domains by training. Sommelier students, who are future olfaction experts, could be an excellent model to study the effects of olfactory training.

Methods

We tested whether sommelier students display superior olfactory abilities early in their education: within the first 2 months of education, we examined the olfactory function, i.e., discrimination and identification of odors as well as olfactory threshold and olfactory memory, of n = 25 sommelier students and compared them to n = 29 control students. We also tested episodic and working memory.

Results

We found that sommelier students outperformed controls in free and cued identification, but we did not observe any difference in discrimination or threshold tasks. There was also no difference in memory tasks.

Conclusions

Early in their education, sommelier students appear to be better at identifying odors, but do not display other superior olfactory abilities.

Implications

Results suggest that sommeliers are better at identifying odors than the average person, either because they enter into training with superior identifications skills or are able to learn to identify odors at a very fast rate.

中文翻译：

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侍酒师学生在训练中表现出卓越的识别能力，但不能早期发现或辨别气味

介绍

通过培训，专家可以在其特定领域获得卓越的能力。做为嗅觉专家的侍酒师学生可能是研究嗅觉训练效果的绝佳模型。

方法

我们测试了侍酒师学生在他们的教育初期是否表现出优异的嗅觉能力：在教育的前两个月内，我们检查了n  = 25个侍酒师学生的嗅觉功能，即气味的辨别和识别以及嗅觉阈值和嗅觉记忆。并将他们与n  = 29名对照学生进行比较。我们还测试了情景记忆和工作记忆。

结果

我们发现侍酒师的学生在自由和暗示的识别方面胜过对照，但我们在歧视或门槛任务上没有发现任何差异。内存任务也没有差异。

结论

在他们的教育初期，侍酒师的学生似乎在识别气味方面更好，但没有其他出色的嗅觉能力。

含义

结果表明，侍酒师比普通人更能识别气味，这是因为侍酒师接受了高级识别技能的训练，或者能够学会以非常快的速度识别气味。