Effects of Perceptual Processing Strategy and Exposure on the Perception of Odour Blending Mixtures

Elodie Le Berre

Abstract
Exposure to the components of an odour mixture and cognitive strategy (analytical vs synthetic) can affect the perception of a mixture, but their effect on mixtures in which odour blending occurs have never been studied. In our experiment, participants were first exposed either to the odorants contributing to a mixture smelling Pineapple, or to the odorants contributing to a mixture smelling Grenadine, or non-exposed. The test phase was divided into two parts: the first part was dedicated to the evaluation of the target mixture and its corresponding odorants; and the second part was dedicated to the evaluation of the other mixture and its corresponding odorants. For the test phase, half of each group were assigned to a synthetic or an analytical task. The synthetic task consisted in evaluating the typicality of the mixtures and their odorants on one scale with the target terms which are “Pineapple” or “Grenadine”. The analytical task consisted in evaluating the typicality of the mixtures and their odorants on several scales with the target term and the terms defining the quality of each mixture’s odorants. Results will be discussed in terms of interaction between a cognitive process (analytical vs synthetic) and the perception of odour blending mixture.

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