Introduction

A growing body of research has demonstrated differences in perceptual, conceptual, and language abilities between wine experts and novices. However, it is unclear to what extent these differences are innate or acquired through training. The present study assessed the olfactory and gustatory performance of a group of university blind wine tasters before and after training. Previous research has shown that this training regimen significantly improves blind tasting accuracy, but it remains unknown whether perceptual learning from blind tasting training is generalisable to standard tests of olfactory/gustatory ability.

Methods

Two testing sessions were carried out for the training group (N = 14) as well as for a control group (N = 12) before and after a 5-week training period. In each session, participants underwent olfactory threshold, discrimination, and identification assessments as well as a gustatory sensitivity test.

Results

Olfactory discrimination significantly improved in the training group over the 5-week period, and the training group outperformed controls in olfactory identification in both sessions.

Conclusions

Based on our limited set of data, wine training seems to have improved olfactory discrimination, even though the method of training did not involve odorants used in the discrimination test itself.

Implications

These results reveal that even wine training over a short period seems to make concrete changes to olfactory performance, supporting the idea that generalised perceptual learning can take place for odour discrimination.

中文翻译：

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知觉学习在化学意义上是否可以泛化？基于自然盲品酒训练方案的纵向试验研究

介绍

越来越多的研究表明，葡萄酒专家和新手之间在感知，概念和语言能力上的差异。但是，尚不清楚这些差异是在何种程度上是先天性的或通过培训获得的。本研究评估了训练前后一组大学盲品酒师的嗅觉和味觉表现。先前的研究表明，这种训练方法可以显着提高盲品酒的准确性，但是从盲品酒训练中获得的知觉学习是否可以推广到嗅觉/味觉能力的标准测试，仍是未知的。

方法

在为期5周的训练前后，对训练组（N = 14）和对照组（N = 12）进行了两次测试。在每节课中，参与者都要进行嗅觉阈值，歧视和鉴定评估以及味觉敏感性测试。

结果

在5周的时间内，训练组的嗅觉歧视显着改善，并且在两次训练中，训练组的嗅觉识别性能均优于对照组。

结论

根据我们有限的数据集，葡萄酒培训似乎改善了嗅觉辨别力，即使该培训方法并未涉及辨别力测试本身使用的气味剂。

含义

这些结果表明，即使在短时间内进行葡萄酒培训，也似乎会对嗅觉性能产生具体变化，从而支持了可以进行普遍感知学习以区分气味的观点。