Short Note Odor Identification by Name and by Edibility: Life-Span Development and Safety

Abstract

The study explored how subjects from childhood (8–14 years old) to elderly adulthood could identify the odors of 17 everyday products. Performance at naming followed an inverted U-shaped course over age, best in young adults and poorest in children and elderly. A discrimination task given to the adults revealed parallel age-related declines in ability to name and to discriminate odors. Correct identification by edibility exceeded that by name considerably. For dangerous household products, children achieved only 15% correct naming but 79% correct edibility/inedibility. Scenting of dangerous household products, however, may compromise the discriminability of these products from less harmful ones. "Fresh" -scented hypochlorite bleach yielded significantly more errors regarding its possible causticity than did unscented bleach. Such modifications of products would seem to necessitate other compensatory changes to enhance discriminability and thereby maintain safety.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cain, W. S. (1979). To know with the nose: Keys to odor identification. Science, 203, 467–470.

Cain, W. S. (1982). Odor identification by males and females: Predictions vs. performance. Chemical Senses, 7, 129–142.

Cain, W. S. , and Gent, J. F. (1991). Olfactory sensitivity: Reliability, generality, and association with aging. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 17, 382–391.

Carroll, J. B. , Davies, P. , and Richman, B. (1971). Word frequency book. New York: American Heritage.

Doty, R. L. , Shaman, P. , Applebaum, S. L. , Giberson, R. , Sikorsky, L. , and Rosenberg, L. (1984). Smell identification ability: Changes with age. Science, 226, 1441–1443.

Engen, T. , and Corbit, T. E. (1970). Feasibility of olfactory coding of noxious substances to assure aversive reosponses in young children (Injury Control Research Laboratory-RR-69–6). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

Eskenazi, B. , Cain, W. S. , and Friend, K. (1986). Exploration of olfactory aptitude. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 24, 203–206.

Litovitz, T. L. , Bailey, K. M. , Schmitz, B. F. , Holm, K. C. , and Klein-Schwartz, W. (1991). 1990 annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers National Data Collection System. American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 9, 461–509.

Murphy, C. , and Cain, W. S. (1986). Odor identification: The blind are better. Physiology & Behavior, 37, 177–180.