Monell Chemical Senses Center, 3500 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104-3308, USA.
Chem Senses. 2010 Nov;35(9):823-9. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjq086. Epub 2010 Sep 21.
Relatively, few studies have focused on how nasal irritation changes over time. To simulate the rhythm of natural respiration, subjects received 3-s pulses of volatile organic compounds interspersed with 3-s pulses of clean air. Each trial, subjects received 9 pulses of a chemical vapor over about 1 min. Subjects rated nasal irritation from each pulse using magnitude estimation. Within a trial, compound and concentration were fixed. Compound (ethanol, n-butanol, or n-hexanol) and concentration (4 levels for each compound) varied across trials. For all stimuli, rated irritation decreased over time (adaptation). Plots of log-rated intensity versus elapsed time were approximately linear (intensity decreased by a fixed ratio per unit time). Interestingly, the slopes of intensity versus time functions differed very little: Regardless of concentration and compound, rated irritation decreased by about 32% over the 9 pulses. The basic mechanism of short-term adaptation may be the same for the 3 alcohols studied. Regardless, these data suggest that very simple models might be able to describe some aspects of perceptual dynamics quite well.
相对而言，很少有研究关注鼻腔刺激随时间的变化。为了模拟自然呼吸的节奏，受测者接受了 3 秒脉冲的挥发性有机化合物，中间穿插着 3 秒脉冲的清洁空气。在每一次试验中，受测者在大约 1 分钟内接受 9 次化学蒸气脉冲。受测者使用数量估计法对每次脉冲的鼻腔刺激进行评分。在一次试验中，化合物和浓度是固定的。化合物（乙醇、正丁醇或正己醇）和浓度（每种化合物 4 个水平）在试验之间变化。对于所有刺激，鼻腔刺激评分随时间的推移而降低（适应）。对数评分强度与时间的关系图大致呈线性（强度每单位时间按固定比例降低）。有趣的是，强度与时间函数的斜率差异很小：无论浓度和化合物如何，9 次脉冲后鼻腔刺激评分降低约 32%。研究的 3 种醇的短期适应的基本机制可能相同。无论如何，这些数据表明，非常简单的模型可能能够很好地描述感知动态的某些方面。
