de Graaf C, van Staveren W, Burema J
Department of Human Nutrition, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.
Chem Senses. 1996 Jun;21(3):293-302. doi: 10.1093/chemse/21.3.293.
This study was designed to determine the cause of potential differences in optimal preferred flavour concentrations in four common food items between young and elderly subjects. The main objective was to investigate whether the differences in concentration-pleasantness functions could be attributed to differences in concentration-intensity (psychophysical) functions, or to differences in intensity-pleasantness (psychohedonic) functions. Groups of elderly subjects (n = 31) and young subjects (n = 25) judged four series of food items (bouillon, tomato soup, chocolate custard and orange lemonade), each with five geometrically spaced flavour concentration levels. In addition, all participants judged a series of grey surfaces as a reference series. Stimuli were judged on a 10-point scale with respect to perceived intensity and pleasantness. The results showed that the responses to the various stimuli in the series of grey surfaces were almost equivalent for young and elderly subjects. The older subjects had higher optimal flavour concentrations than young subjects for each of the four food items. The differences could be attributed to differences in both psychophysical and psychohedonic functions for all four flavours. However, changes in psychohedonic functions were less pronounced for the savoury flavours than for the sweet flavours. The higher optimal preferred flavour concentration level for the elderly could be partly explained by the phenomenon that the elderly need higher concentration levels than young subjects in order to obtain a similar perceived intensity level.
本研究旨在确定年轻和老年受试者对四种常见食品的最佳偏好风味浓度存在潜在差异的原因。主要目的是调查浓度-愉悦度函数的差异是否可归因于浓度-强度（心理物理学）函数的差异，或强度-愉悦度（心理享乐学）函数的差异。老年受试者组（n = 31）和年轻受试者组（n = 25）对四个系列的食品（肉汤、番茄汤、巧克力蛋奶冻和橙味柠檬水）进行了评判，每个系列有五个几何级数间隔的风味浓度水平。此外，所有参与者对一系列灰色表面作为参考系列进行了评判。根据感知强度和愉悦度，对刺激进行10分制评分。结果表明，年轻和老年受试者对灰色表面系列中各种刺激的反应几乎相同。对于这四种食品中的每一种，老年受试者的最佳风味浓度都高于年轻受试者。对于所有四种风味，这些差异可归因于心理物理学和心理享乐学函数的差异。然而，咸味风味的心理享乐学函数变化不如甜味风味明显。老年人较高的最佳偏好风味浓度水平部分可以用以下现象来解释：为了获得相似的感知强度水平，老年人比年轻受试者需要更高的浓度水平。
