Lindqvist Anna, Höglund Anders, Berglund Birgitta
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Frescati Hagväg 8, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Perception. 2012;41(11):1373-91. doi: 10.1068/p7267.
Twenty participants scaled similarities in odour quality, odour intensity and pleasantness/ unpleasantness of 10 binary and 5 higher-order mixtures of 5 odorous degradation products from the polymer Polyamide 6.6. The perceived odour qualities of all binary mixtures were represented well as intermediary vectors relative to their component-odour vectors in a three-component principal components analysis. The odour qualities of the "floral/fruity" 2-pentylcyclopentan-1-one and the "sharp/cheese-like" pentanoic acid contributed profoundly to their binary mixtures, as did the "minty" cyclopentanone, but in fewer cases. Conversely, the "ether-like" 2-methyl pyridine and "nutty" butanamide did not contribute much. Odour similarity was shown to be caused by odour quality, rather than odour intensity. Three out of five degradation products formed distinct clusters of odours and were therefore interpreted to be profound contributors to the odour quality of the binary mixtures. The higher-order mixtures created new odour qualities which were completely different and untraceable to their various parts as perceived alone. These results demonstrate that it is critical to research the perception of natural mixtures in order to be able to understand the human olfactory code.
20名参与者对由聚合物聚酰胺6.6的5种有气味降解产物组成的10种二元混合物和5种高阶混合物的气味质量、气味强度以及愉悦度/不愉悦度进行了评分。在三组分主成分分析中，所有二元混合物的感知气味质量作为相对于其成分气味向量的中间向量得到了很好的呈现。“花香/果香”的2-戊基环戊烷-1-酮和“刺鼻/奶酪样”的戊酸的气味质量对其二元混合物有很大贡献，“薄荷味”的环戊酮也是如此，但情况较少。相反，“醚样”的2-甲基吡啶和“坚果味”的丁酰胺贡献不大。气味相似性表明是由气味质量而非气味强度引起的。五种降解产物中有三种形成了不同的气味簇，因此被认为是二元混合物气味质量的重要贡献者。高阶混合物产生了新的气味质量，这些气味质量完全不同，单独感知其各个部分时无法追溯到。这些结果表明，研究天然混合物的感知对于理解人类嗅觉编码至关重要。
