Introduction

When participants eat foods, they direct their attention to the particular taste quality that is the target of evaluation and subsequently perceive the intensity of the attended taste quality. We defined the ease with which participants pay attention to a particular taste quality as the “noticeability” of that quality. In our previous study, Japanese participants evaluated noticeability and intensity of five fundamental taste qualities (sweetness, umami, saltiness, sourness, and bitterness) under open- and closed-nostril conditions, using a popular traditional Japanese confection, yokan. The correlation between noticeability and intensity of sweetness was significantly reduced when participants were tested with open nostrils. Therefore, we hypothesized that high familiarity with a food and its olfactory information is necessary to decrease the correlation between these two scales.

Methods

In order to verify this hypothesis, we asked Japanese and German participants, who have different food cultures, to subjectively evaluate yokan, which is familiar to Japanese but unfamiliar to Germans. In a control condition, marshmallows were used which are familiar to all participants. Participants consumed each food under open- and closed-nostril conditions and evaluated the noticeability and intensity of the five fundamental taste qualities.

Results

There were significant differences between the participants’ groups as the correlation between noticeability and intensity was reduced significantly only for sweetness of a familiar food under open-nostril condition.

Conclusions

These results support our hypothesis that high familiarity with a food and its olfactory information might be necessary to decrease the correlation between noticeability and intensity of a particular taste quality.

Implications

This finding suggests that perception of a food is influenced by its familiarity and retronasal aroma. These results suggest when a food is unfamiliar, the noticeability and intensity of a particular taste quality are not much altered by the retronasal aroma, but when a food is highly familiar, retronasal aroma serves to decouple noticeability and intensity of a given taste quality.

中文翻译：

---

熟悉和后鼻香气改变食物感知

介绍

参与者吃食物时，他们将注意力转移到特定的口味质量上，这是评估的目标，并随后感知到所参与的口味质量的强度。我们将参与者关注特定口味质量的难易程度定义为该质量的“显着性”。在我们之前的研究中，日本参与者使用一种流行的传统日本甜点yokan，在开鼻孔和闭孔条件下评估了五种基本口味品质（甜度，鲜味，咸味，酸味和苦味）的引人注目和强度。当参与者用开放式鼻孔进行测试时，显着性和甜度之间的相关性显着降低。因此，我们假设对食物及其嗅觉信息的高度熟悉对于减少这两个量表之间的相关性是必要的。

方法

为了验证这一假设，我们要求日本和德国的参与者，谁都有不同的饮食文化，主观评价羊羹，这是熟悉的日本，但不熟悉的德国人。在控制条件下，使用了所有参与者都熟悉的棉花糖。参与者在开式和闭式鼻孔条件下食用每种食物，并评估了五种基本口味质量的醒目性和强度。

结果

参与者组之间存在显着差异，因为仅在鼻孔开放的情况下，对于熟悉的食物，甜度和强度之间的相关性才显着降低。

结论

这些结果支持我们的假设，即可能需要高度熟悉某种食物及其嗅觉信息，以减少可察觉性和特定口味质量的强度之间的相关性。

含义

这一发现表明，对食物的感知受其熟悉程度和鼻后香气的影响。这些结果表明，当食物不熟悉时，特定味道质量的引人注目性和强度不会因鼻后香气而发生很大变化，但是当食物非常熟悉时，鼻后香气可以使给定味道质量的引人注意性与强度脱钩。