Taste intensity perception in aging.

Men (n = 91) and women (n = 79) between the ages of 23 and 88 years made cross-modal matches of distance to the perceived intensity of aqueous solutions representing the four basic taste qualities. Traditional analysis, which characterizes age-group performance in terms of the slope of a group's psychophysical function, yielded results consistent with previous findings in that some flattening of slope was observed in the oldest group. Analyses based on the slope of the functions generated by individual participants demonstrated significant regression on age for some qualities. None of these findings were observed in the analogous analysis of variance (ANOVA). Significant age-related changes in Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) were demonstrated by both ANOVA and regression analysis. The ICC reflects the consistency of an individual's discriminative response over repeated stimulus presentations. Its variation with age was dependent upon taste quality.