Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on May 11, 2006
Chemical Senses 2006 31(6):539-545; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjj058
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The Capacity of Humans to Identify Components in Complex Odor–taste Mixtures
1 Centre for Advanced Food Research, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South, New South Wales 1797, Australia 2 School for Women and Children's Health, Faculty of Medicine, School of Women and Children's Health, University of New South Wales, Level 3, Sydney Children's Hospital, High Street, Randwick, New South Wales 2031, Australia
Correspondence to be sent to: David G. Laing, Faculty of Medicine, School of Women and Children's Health, University of New South Wales, Level 3, Sydney Children's Hospital, High Street, Randwick, New South Wales 2031, Australia. e-mail: d.laing{at}unsw.edu.au
Despite the fact that humans experience mixtures of odors and tastes each time they eat, little is known of their capacity to detect the individual components of foods. To investigate this capacity, 43 subjects were trained to identify three odors and three tastes and were required to indicate which of these could be identified in stimuli consisting of one to six components. Although the odor and taste components of most binary mixtures were identified, subjects encountered substantial difficulties with more complex mixtures with only two components being identified in the four- to six-component mixtures. In general, tastes were more easily identified than smells and were the only stimuli identified in the five- to six-component mixtures. Several mechanisms are proposed to account for the poor identification of components.
Key words: analytical capacity, humans, odor–taste mixtures