O'Mahony M, Hobson A, Garvey J, Davies M, Birt C
Perception. 1976;5(2):147-54. doi: 10.1068/p050147.
Ascending series of solutions of sucrose, glucose, and citric acid were tasted and detection and recognition thresholds were noted; subjects were also required to determine the number of taste sensations that occurred and their sequence of occurrence. It was found that subjects varied in their reports of the number of taste changes and hence potential criteria for detection and recognition. Even among those subjects who reported the same number of criteria there was little consistency as to which were actually chosen for detection and recognition. Some subjects even used an intensity change rather than a quality change to signal a threshold. They criterion can thus be seen to be a potential variable in threshold measurement, and criterion-free measures of sensitivity are recommended. Taste quality descriptions were also studied and a high proportion of novel descriptions was noted; it was hypothesised that this was due to the fact that subjects were not primed with traditional descriptive terms during the instructions.
品尝了蔗糖、葡萄糖和柠檬酸的递增系列溶液，并记录了检测阈值和识别阈值；还要求受试者确定产生的味觉感受的数量及其出现顺序。结果发现，受试者对味觉变化数量的报告各不相同，因此检测和识别的潜在标准也不同。即使在那些报告了相同数量标准的受试者中，对于实际选择用于检测和识别的标准也几乎没有一致性。一些受试者甚至使用强度变化而非质量变化来表示阈值。因此，可以看出该标准是阈值测量中的一个潜在变量，建议采用无标准的灵敏度测量方法。还研究了味觉质量描述，发现有很大比例的新颖描述；据推测，这是因为在指导过程中受试者没有接触到传统的描述性术语。
