ISSN:
0034-6659
Source:
Emerald Fulltext Archive Database 1994-2005
Topics:
Agriculture, Forestry, Horticulture, Fishery, Domestic Science, Nutrition
,
Process Engineering, Biotechnology, Nutrition Technology
Notes:
Describes how 48 subjects participated in experiments toinvestigate the effect of visual cues in identifying odours. Thesubjects were first instructed to describe the odour of six fruitsolutions, four of which were inappropriately coloured. Second, theywere presented with a series of fruit solutions which varied in odourand colour intensity and were asked to rank them in order of odourstrength. For the control sets, the odour and colour strengths werecompatible; in the experimental sets the odour strength and colourintensity were conflicting. The results of the first experiment indicatethat the identification of fruit odours proves significantly moredifficult when the colour of the solution is inappropriate (p〈 0.05) and in the second experiment more subjects rank the solutionsin the correct order when the colour intensity and odour strengths arecompatible than when they are conflicting. Visual cues are found toinfluence odour judgements significantly and, when presented withconflicting stimuli, the visual cues appear to override the olfactorysense and distract the subjects from making the correct assessment.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00346659510094008
