Effects of panel experience on olfactory memory performance: influence of stimuli familiarity and labeling ability of subjects.

This work attempted to define the impact of panel experience on olfactory memory performance by comparing scores in an odor recognition task obtained from a highly trained descriptive panel (17 subjects) and a naive one (33 subjects with no experience in sensory analysis). During the inspection phase, 16 odorants were presented monadically to subjects for familiarity rating and a written description. The recognition session was planned 7 days later with 32 odorants (including the 16 of the target set). Subjects also described the odor of the stimuli. The memory performance of each panel was estimated by the mean value of individual d' (index of detectability). Training of the descriptive panel did not enhance the olfactory memory ability, which strengthened the well-established idea that odor memory is closely linked to personal experience of the subject with the stimuli. However, odor recognition performances were improved by a precise and consistent answer at the encoding task: for both groups, subjects performed better when stimuli were precisely labeled and consistently used. Trained subjects were more accurate when describing than naive ones, whatever the degree of familiarity. Panel experience allowed trained subjects to verbalize their perception especially accurately when stimuli were familiar.