Russell M J, Cummings B J, Profitt B F, Wysocki C J, Gilbert A N, Cotman C W
Department of Anesthesiology, University of California, Davis.
J Gerontol. 1993 Mar;48(2):P49-53. doi: 10.1093/geronj/48.2.p49.
An odor description task was used to explore age-related change in odor perception based on 1.19 million U.S. and Canadian respondents (ages 10-90 years) to the National Geographic Smell Survey. Respondents sampled six microencapsulated odorants and selected 1 of 11 descriptors to characterize each smell. Four odors were characterized by strong consensus endorsement of a single descriptor. This consensus weakened with advancing age, and nonmodal descriptors were endorsed more frequently. Nonmodal responses were neither randomly selected, nor systematically biased across odors. Rather, they showed odor-specific patterns of change. Together, these results suggest a marked change in odor categorization across the life span. Odor descriptor profiles were used to generate age-specific multidimensional scaling maps. Stimulus configurations were stable from the third through fifth decades. Those from the sixth through ninth decades showed major displacements for two odors, and suggest that the sweet dimension of odor quality may be particularly variable with maturation.
基于119万美国和加拿大受访者（年龄在10至90岁之间）参与的《国家地理嗅觉调查》，采用气味描述任务来探究与年龄相关的气味感知变化。受访者对六种微胶囊化气味剂进行采样，并从11种描述词中选择1种来描述每种气味。四种气味通过对单一描述词的强烈共识认可得以表征。随着年龄增长，这种共识逐渐减弱，非典型描述词被更频繁地认可。非典型反应既不是随机选择的，也不是在各种气味间存在系统性偏差。相反，它们呈现出特定气味的变化模式。总体而言，这些结果表明在整个生命周期中气味分类存在显著变化。气味描述词概况被用于生成特定年龄的多维标度图。刺激配置从第三个十年到第五个十年保持稳定。第六个十年到第九个十年的配置显示出两种气味的主要位移，这表明气味品质的甜味维度可能随成熟度变化尤为显著。
