Sorokowska Agnieszka, Hummel Thomas, Oleszkiewicz Anna
Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Poland.
Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.
Neuroscience. 2020 Aug 1;440:56-64. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.05.033. Epub 2020 May 27.
The exposure-driven olfactory compensation associated with sensory loss is likely to be observed in assessment of food-related dangers. Therefore, in the current study we tested the hypothesis that olfactory compensation occurs in the case of protection from food-related hazards. We compared thresholds for detection of an unpleasant rotten food odor (fermented fish sauce) in four groups of subjects: blind subjects (n = 100), sighted controls (n = 100), deaf subjects (n = 74) and hearing controls (n = 99). Overall, we observed no significant differences in smell acuity between the blind and deaf groups and their matched control samples. However, the sensory deprived subjects assessed their sensitivity as higher than did control groups. The present study is yet another example of research among large samples of sensory deprived individuals that shows no evidence of olfactory compensation. This result is consistent with a growing number of studies suggesting no sensory compensation in simple, absolute sensitivity tasks.
在评估与食物相关的危险时，可能会观察到与感觉丧失相关的暴露驱动的嗅觉补偿。因此，在本研究中，我们检验了这样一个假设：在免受与食物相关危害的情况下会发生嗅觉补偿。我们比较了四组受试者检测一种难闻的腐烂食物气味（发酵鱼露）的阈值：盲人受试者（n = 100）、有视力的对照组（n = 100）、聋人受试者（n = 74）和听力正常的对照组（n = 99）。总体而言，我们观察到盲人群体和聋人群体与其匹配的对照样本之间在嗅觉敏锐度上没有显著差异。然而，感觉剥夺的受试者评估自己的敏感度高于对照组。本研究是对大量感觉剥夺个体进行研究的又一个例子，该研究没有显示出嗅觉补偿的证据。这一结果与越来越多的研究一致，这些研究表明在简单的绝对敏感度任务中不存在感觉补偿。
