UMR, Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation 6265, CNRS, INRA, Université de Bourgogne, F-21000 Dijon, France.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2012 Nov;113(3):337-52. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.05.007. Epub 2012 Jul 13.
This study examined the ability of children to classify fruit and flower odors. We asked four groups of children (4-11 years of age) and a group of adults to identify, categorize, and evaluate the edibility, liking, and typicality of 12 fruit and flower odors. Results showed an increase in interindividual agreement with age for the taxonomic (fruit/flower) and function-based (edible/nonedible) categories but not for the hedonic component. So, it seems that this hedonic component is not the explicit basis for this increase in interindividual agreement when categorizing an odor as a fruit/flower odor or as being edible or nonedible. An age-related trend was also observed on the typicality scores: The youngest group of children did not show a typicality gradient, but all of the other groups did. Blackcurrant and lemon were rated as the most typical fruit odors, whereas raspberry and peach were rated as the least typical. For flower odorants, results were not as clear, yet it seems that for all groups lavender was considered as quite typical.
本研究考察了儿童对水果和花香气味的分类能力。我们要求四组儿童（4-11 岁）和一组成年人识别、分类和评估 12 种水果和花香气味的可食用性、喜好和典型性。结果表明，在基于分类（水果/花）和功能（可食用/不可食用）的类别中，个体间的一致性随着年龄的增长而增加，但在愉悦性成分上却没有增加。因此，在将气味归类为水果/花香气味或可食用/不可食用时，这种愉悦性成分似乎不是个体间一致性增加的明确依据。在典型性评分上也观察到了与年龄相关的趋势：年龄最小的一组儿童没有表现出典型性梯度，但其他所有组都有。黑加仑和柠檬被评为最典型的水果气味，而覆盆子和桃子被评为最不典型的水果气味。对于花香气味，结果并不那么明显，但似乎对于所有组，薰衣草都被认为是相当典型的。
