Page 66 - ACHEMS 2012 PROGRAM

#P115 POSTER SESSION III:
OLFACTION DEVELOPMENT & CNS;
HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS; TASTE PERIPHERY
The Influence of Verbal Processes on the Relationship Between
Odor Naming and Memory
Trevor C. Cessna, Robert A. Frank
University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH, USA
Consistent odor naming has been found to be an excellent predictor
of odor recognition memory in some studies but a poor predictor in
others. One explanation for these discrepant results is that some
testing procedures allow participants to employ a verbal strategy to
recognize odors as old or new during retrieval by remembering the
names given to the odors. The response old is given when an odor
name used during encoding is also used during retrieval. When an
odor name is not used during encoding, the recognition memory
response is new. The aim of the current studies was to determine
which of four procedures were conducive to use the verbal strategy.
In the baseline procedure, participants smelled 10 odors, selected
an odor name from 4 name alternatives, and were told to remember
each odor for a subsequent memory test. Following a 10 minute
retention interval, 20 odors were presented - 10 from the encoding
phase and 10 new odors. Participants were asked to select the name
from 4 alternatives and indicate whether the odor had been
presented previously (old odor) or was new. The 3 remaining
studies altered the above procedure by 1) separating completely the
odor recognition memory task from the odor naming task, or 2)
reversing the presentation order of the odor naming and recognition
memory evaluation during the retrieval phase, or 3) using only odor
names during encoding and using 16 odor alternatives during the
retrieval phase. The predictive power of consistent odor naming
and the use of the verbal strategy were the greatest when the odor
names were provided both in the encoding and retrieval phases of
the procedure. It was concluded that the ability of consistent
naming to predict odor recognition memory is linked to the use
of the verbal strategy in the dual odor naming/recognition
memory task.
#P116 POSTER SESSION III:
OLFACTION DEVELOPMENT & CNS;
HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS; TASTE PERIPHERY
Swiss identity smells like chocolate: Accessible social identities
shape olfactory perception
Géraldine Coppin1,2, Sylvain Delplanque1,2, Bastiaan Oud1,3,
Christian Margot4, David Sander1,2, Jay J. Van Bavel5
1Swiss Center for Affective Sciences Geneva, Switzerland,
2University of Geneva, Department of Psychology, E3 Lab Geneva,
Switzerland, 3Department of Economics & Laboratory for Social
and Neural Systems Research, University of Zürich Zürich,
Switzerland, 4Firmenich S.A., Geneva Geneva, Switzerland, 5New
York University, Department of Psychology New York, NY, USA
There is some evidence that olfactory perception differs between
cultural groups. However, people from different culture differ not
just by their familiarity with different odors, but simultaneously
in a variety of other dimensions, such as their social identity
(e.g., nationality), rendering it unclear what is behind such
differences. In this research, we isolated the effect of social
identity on olfactory perception. To do so, we varied the relative
accessibility of Swiss identity, using priming techniques, across
participants from the same cultural background (i.e., Swiss). We
contrasted these participants to a group of non-Swiss participants
exposed to the same identity priming procedure. We measured the
perception of two odors: chocolate, for which Switzerland is world
famous, and sweet popcorn, a similarly high-caloric food item with
no particular association to Switzerland. Swiss participants primed
with Swiss identity perceived the chocolate odor as more intense
than when primed with non-identity (p <.001), and than non-Swiss
participants in the same identity priming condition (p <.001). There
were no significant effects of condition on chocolate pleasantness
or familiarity ratings [Fs (3,74) = 0.23, 0.25, p s = .872, .860]. For
popcorn, there was no significant effect of experimental condition
on intensity, pleasantness, or familiarity perceptions [F s (3,74) =
.96, .47, .66, ps = .415, .706, .580]. Taken together, this shows that
making a particular social identity accessible can selectively
enhance the intensity of odors relevant to the primed identity,
even in the absence of familiarity and pleasantness differences.
Our results suggest that beyond culture, social psychological
concerns, such as the accessibility of a particular identity, can
impact olfactory perception. Acknowledgements: This research was
supported by the National Center of Competence in Research for
the Affective Sciences, financed by a grant from the Swiss National
Science Foundation (51NF40-104897), hosted by the University of
Geneva, and by a research grant from Firmenich, SA,
to David Sander and Patrik Vuilleumier.
#P117 POSTER SESSION III:
OLFACTION DEVELOPMENT & CNS;
HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS; TASTE PERIPHERY
Retronasal identifications of vapor-phase 18-carbon fatty acids
Tariq Chukir 1, Bruce P Halpern2
1Weill Cornell Medical College Doha, Qatar, 2Cornell University,
Departments of Psychology and Neurobiology and Behavior
Ithaca, NY, USA
The long-chain 18-carbon fatty acids linoleic, oleic, and stearic
acids, presented retronasally in vapor-phase, are discriminated
from blanks and each other (Kallas & Halpern, Chemo. Percept.
4:16-25, 2011). However, ability to linguistically identify them
individually or as a group is unknown. Literature sources suggested
‘oily’ or ‘fat’ as likely identifications. METHODS. 1 st, a Focus
Group produced 32 descriptors for the 3 long-chain fatty acids
plus phenylethyl alcohol (PEA) and geraniol, each presented
retronasally in vapor-phase. 2nd, Check-All-That-Apply (CATA)
measures on these 32 descriptors gave 9 identifiers for the 5
stimuli, each selected for a stimulus by ≥3 CATA participants:
flowers, lemon, margarine, new plastic, oily, olive oil, peanut oil,
rubbery, and sunflower. 3rd, using these identifiers, 22 participants
selected 1 of the 9 identifiers from a computer-based display during
4 retronasal vapor-phase presentations of the 5 randomized stimuli.
RESULTS. Modal identification (and 2nd & 3rd most frequent
identifications) for geraniol was 95% lemon (2% oily, 1% flowers),
PEA 67% flowers (11% rubbery, 10% oily), linoleic acid 23%
rubbery (18% oily & 18% new plastic, 14% olive oil), oleic acid
21% oily (19% rubbery, 16% new plastic and 16% sunflower),
stearic acid 43% rubbery (22% new plastic, 18% oily).
Identifications for fatty acids differed from those for geraniol
and PEA, p <0.0008, but fatty acid identifications did not differ
from each other, p ≥ 0.48, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests.
CONCLUSIONS. Retronasally presented linoleic, oleic, and stearic
18-carbon fatty acids received identifications that differed from
other vapor-phase stimuli but not from each other, suggesting that
retronasal vapor-phase 18-carbon fatty acids can be identified as a
group but not separately. Acknowledgements: Support from a
Susan Linn Sage Professorship
66 | AChemS Abstracts 2012 Abstracts are printed as submitted by the author(s)
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