Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States.
Appetite. 2018 Jun 1;125:244-252. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2018.02.012. Epub 2018 Feb 13.
Our hedonic response to a food is determined by its flavor, an inherently multisensory experience that extends beyond the mere addition of its odor and taste. While congruency is known to be important for multisensory processes in general, little is known about its specific role in flavor processing. The aim of the present study was to delineate the effects of odor-taste congruency on two central aspects of flavor: odor referral (or mislocalization) to the mouth, and pleasantness. We further aimed to test whether an eventual effect on pleasantness was mediated by odor referral. Aqueous solutions containing odors and tastes were prepared to create food-like stimuli with varying degrees of congruency, ranging from maximally incongruent to maximally congruent in nine steps. Thirty participants reported where they perceived the odors, and how much they liked the solutions. Congruency had a positive linear effect both on odor referral to the oral cavity and on pleasantness. However, the effect of congruency on pleasantness was not mediated by odor referral. These results indicate that as an odor-taste mixture approximates a mental representation of a familiar food, its components are increasingly merged into one perceptual object sensed in the mouth. In parallel, the mixture is evaluated as increasingly pleasant, which promotes consumption of familiar foods that have been determined through experience to be non-toxic. While the modulatory role of congruency on pleasantness and odor referral was confirmed, our results also indicate that these effects arise through distinct perceptual mechanisms.
我们对食物的愉悦反应取决于其味道，这是一种内在的多感官体验，不仅限于其气味和味道的简单组合。虽然一致性对于多感官过程通常很重要，但对于其在味道处理中的具体作用知之甚少。本研究的目的是描绘气味与味道的一致性对味道的两个核心方面的影响：气味向口腔的错误定位（或误定位）和愉悦感。我们进一步旨在测试对愉悦感的最终影响是否通过气味的错误定位来介导。制备含有气味和味道的水溶液，以创建具有不同程度一致性的食物样刺激物，从最大不一致到最大一致分为九个步骤。三十名参与者报告了他们感知到的气味位置，以及他们对溶液的喜爱程度。一致性对口腔气味的错误定位和愉悦感都有积极的线性影响。然而，一致性对愉悦感的影响不是通过气味的错误定位来介导的。这些结果表明，随着气味-味道混合物接近熟悉食物的心理表征，其成分越来越融合成一个在口腔中感知到的单一感知对象。同时，混合物被评估为越来越令人愉悦，这促进了对已通过经验确定为无毒的熟悉食物的消费。虽然一致性对愉悦感和气味的错误定位的调节作用得到了证实，但我们的结果还表明，这些影响是通过不同的感知机制产生的。
