Mennella J A, Garcia P L
Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2000 Aug;24(8):1167-71.
Previous research in our laboratory revealed that during the first year of life, infants who had more exposure to alcohol, as inferred from questionnaires about parental alcoholism and alcohol intake, mouthed an ethanol-scented toy more compared with less exposed infants. The present study focused on older children (3.8-6.0 years) to determine whether their hedonic response to the odor of alcohol was related to the drinking habits of their parents.
Age-appropriate, game-like tasks that were fun for children and minimized the impact of language development were used to examine their preferences and identification of a variety of odors, one of which was beer.
The children's preference for the odor of beer varied as a function of the escape drinking of their mothers alone or both parents. That is, children who lived in a household in which one or both parents drank alcohol to escape were significantly more likely to dislike the odor bottle that contained alcohol when compared with children whose parents did not drink to escape. This difference between the groups was odor specific. Additional analyses also revealed that the fathers of children who rejected the beer odor reported drinking significantly more than the fathers of those who liked the odor.
These findings suggest that some early learning about alcohol is based on sensory experiences and anchor it to children's experiences at home and the emotional context in which their parents experience alcohol.
我们实验室之前的研究表明，在生命的第一年，根据关于父母酗酒和酒精摄入量的问卷调查推断，接触酒精较多的婴儿相比于接触较少的婴儿，会更多地用嘴接触带有乙醇气味的玩具。本研究聚焦于年龄稍大的儿童（3.8 - 6.0岁），以确定他们对酒精气味的享乐反应是否与父母的饮酒习惯有关。
采用适合儿童年龄、类似游戏的任务，这些任务对儿童来说有趣且将语言发展的影响降至最低，以检查他们对各种气味的偏好和辨别能力，其中一种气味是啤酒。
儿童对啤酒气味的偏好因母亲单独或父母双方借酒消愁的情况而有所不同。也就是说，与父母不借酒消愁的儿童相比，生活在父母一方或双方借酒消愁家庭中的儿童更有可能不喜欢装有酒精的气味瓶。两组之间的这种差异具有气味特异性。进一步分析还显示，拒绝啤酒气味的儿童的父亲报告的饮酒量明显多于喜欢该气味的儿童的父亲。
这些发现表明，一些关于酒精的早期学习是基于感官体验，并将其与儿童在家中的经历以及父母饮酒时的情感背景联系起来。
