Human Informatics Interaction Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba Central 6, 1-1-1 Higashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-8566, Japan.
KIRIN Central Research Institute, Research & Development Division, Kirin Holdings Company, Limited, 1-13-5, Fukuura, Kanazawa, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 236-0004, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 7;11(1):11987. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-91295-z.
Familiarity of odor-odor combinations is enhanced through food intake in daily life. As familiarity increases, the perceptual boundary between two odors may become ambiguous; therefore, we hypothesized that exposure to one odor would delay detection of the other in a high-familiarity combination but not in a low-familiarity combination. To test this hypothesis, we measured the speed of odor detection using two types of background stimuli (black tea odor and odorless air) and two types of target stimuli (lemon odor and almond odor). For Japanese participants, the combination of black tea and lemon odor has high familiarity, whereas the combination of black tea and almond odors has low familiarity. Reaction time for detection of target stimulus was measured by inserting a pulsed target stimulus into the flow of the background stimulus (i.e., replacing the background stimulus with the target stimulus for a short time). Reaction time for detection of lemon odor was significantly longer under the black tea odor condition than under the odorless air condition. Reaction time for detection of almond odor was similar between the black tea odor and odorless air conditions. These results are in line with the hypothesis that familiarity of an odor-odor combination affects odor detection speed. Further investigations are required to reach more robust conclusions.
日常生活中，食物摄入会增强气味-气味组合的熟悉度。随着熟悉度的增加，两种气味之间的感知边界可能会变得模糊；因此，我们假设在高熟悉度组合中，一种气味的暴露会延迟对另一种气味的检测，但在低熟悉度组合中则不会。为了验证这一假设，我们使用两种类型的背景刺激（红茶气味和无味空气）和两种类型的目标刺激（柠檬气味和杏仁气味）来测量气味检测速度。对于日本参与者来说，红茶和柠檬气味的组合具有高度的熟悉度，而红茶和杏仁气味的组合则具有较低的熟悉度。通过将脉冲目标刺激插入背景刺激流中来测量检测目标刺激的反应时间（即，短时间内用目标刺激替换背景刺激）。在红茶气味条件下，检测柠檬气味的反应时间明显长于无味空气条件下的反应时间。在红茶气味和无味空气条件下，检测杏仁气味的反应时间相似。这些结果与气味-气味组合的熟悉度会影响气味检测速度的假设一致。需要进一步的研究来得出更可靠的结论。
