Oleszkiewicz Anna, Rokosz Marta, Gargula Lukasz, Marek Daniel, Nawrocka Paulina, Reichert Aleksandra, Zienkiewicz Kornelia, Zyzelewicz Barbara, Sorokowska Agnieszka
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Smell & Taste Clinic, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, 50-527, Poland.
Psychol Res. 2025 May 20;89(3):100. doi: 10.1007/s00426-025-02127-y.
People differ in terms of olfactory abilities and awareness of ambient odors. Olfactory training (OT), a method primarily devoted to the rehabilitation of the sense of smell, has been found to have a positive effect on various olfactory and cognitive abilities. Here, addressing an important gap in the literature, we tested experimentally whether odor awareness and significance in young children can be enhanced through standardized OT. Additionally, we explored whether OT can improve odor identification skills and verbal fluency. A sample of 101 children (52 girls) aged between 6 and 9 years (M = 7.62 ± 0.61) took part in a 12-week OT, preceded and followed by psychophysical and questionnaire testing. Of these, 57 children were assigned to the experimental group who bi-daily smelled four odors (rose, eucalyptus, lemon and cloves), and 44 children to the placebo group who received odorless samples. Odor significance and awareness score slightly increased, and this improvement was more pronounced in the experimental group. The effect was present in the group that presented lower odor awareness at baseline, suggesting that OT may be particularly effective in children who have lesser experience with odors. OT affected neither the odor identification nor the verbal fluency. We conclude that in children, especially those who have less experience with odors, OT procedure might have certain effects on metacognitive aspects of olfaction. More studies are needed to assess the exact effects of OT on metacognitive olfactory development.
人们在嗅觉能力和对周围气味的感知方面存在差异。嗅觉训练（OT）是一种主要用于嗅觉康复的方法，已被发现对各种嗅觉和认知能力有积极影响。在此，为填补文献中的一个重要空白，我们通过实验测试了标准化的嗅觉训练是否能提高幼儿的气味感知和气味重要性认知。此外，我们还探究了嗅觉训练是否能提高气味识别技能和语言流畅性。101名年龄在6至9岁之间（平均年龄M = 7.62 ± 0.61，其中52名女孩）的儿童参与了为期12周的嗅觉训练，并在训练前后进行了心理物理学和问卷调查测试。其中，57名儿童被分配到实验组，他们每天两次嗅闻四种气味（玫瑰、桉树、柠檬和丁香），44名儿童被分配到安慰剂组，他们收到的是无味样本。气味重要性和感知得分略有提高，且在实验组中这种改善更为明显。这种效果在基线时气味感知较低的组中存在，这表明嗅觉训练可能对气味体验较少的儿童特别有效。嗅觉训练对气味识别和语言流畅性均无影响。我们得出结论，在儿童中，尤其是那些气味体验较少的儿童，嗅觉训练程序可能对嗅觉的元认知方面有一定影响。需要更多研究来评估嗅觉训练对元认知嗅觉发展的确切影响。
