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#P181
POSTER SESSION V:
TRIGEMINAL SYSTEM; BEHAVIOR
AND PSYCHOPHYSICS; ODORANT
RECEPTORS & OLFACTION PERIPHERY
Effects of Jasmine and Peppermint Scent Administration
on Physiological and Psychological Stress Reactions in
Enclosed Spaces
Bryan Raudenbush, August Capiola, Jessica Florian
Wheeling Jesuit University Department of Psychology
Wheeling, WV, USA
Enclosed spaces can cause significant anxiety and stress responses
in individuals, which may hinder their ability to perform certain
tasks. The present study assessed the effects of jasmine and
peppermint scent administration on physical and psychological
stress reactions in enclosed spaces. Eighty-five participants
completed the protocol on two separate occasions. For each
participant’s first visit, they completed questionnaires related to
mood (Profile of Mood States) and anxiety (State Trait Anxiety
Inventory) prior to and after spending 20 minutes in a sensory
deprivation tank. During this time, objective physiological
measures of heart rate, galvanic skin response, and respirations
were recorded. For the participant’s second visit, they repeated the
experimental protocol in the presence of no scent (control
condition), jasmine scent or peppermint scent. Participants
receiving jasmine scent on their second visit showed decreased
heart rate, galvanic skin response, and psychological stress/anxiety
scores than did the control group who did not receive any scent,
F(1,55) = 4.08, 4.05, and 3.31, p<.05, respectively. These results
are particularly salient in terms of reducing stress and anxiety
in participants undergoing enclosed medical procedures, such
as an MRI.
#P182
POSTER SESSION V:
TRIGEMINAL SYSTEM; BEHAVIOR
AND PSYCHOPHYSICS; ODORANT
RECEPTORS & OLFACTION PERIPHERY
Faster Olfactory Detection in High vs. Low Anxious
Healthy Adults
Valérie LaBuissonnière Ariza
1,2
, Johannes Frasnelli
1
, Kevin Kojok
1
1
Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition (CERNEC),
département de psychologie, Université de Montréal Montréal,
QC, Canada,
2
Centre de recherche CHU Ste-Justine Montréal,
QC, Canada
The perceptual and attention systems allow us to be aware of and
react rapidly to a dangerous situation. Despite the evolutionary
utility of such mechanisms, excessive sensitivity to potential threats
can be problematic when the presumed threats do not represent any
danger. Hence, anxious people exhibit increased sensitivity to
moderately threatening or ambiguous visual or auditory stimuli
reflected by faster reaction times. Evidence of such bias is rare for
olfaction, since only a few studies have investigated the influence
of emotional states on olfactory perception. They reveal some
effects of anxiety on olfactory performance; still the nature of these
effects is not clear yet, as edibility and pleasantness of the odor
may be two critical features to take into account. The main
objective of the present study was thus to investigate whether
olfactory perception varies as a function anxiety levels during the
detection of two odors (pleasant food, unpleasant food). We
secondly investigated possible bias for the unpleasant odor in high
anxious subjects. We submitted 38 healthy adults to an odor
detection task and measured their anxiety levels. Highly anxious
subjects detected both odors significantly faster than less anxious
subjects (F=6.98, p= .01). In fact, trait anxiety levels significantly
correlated with reaction times to both, pleasant (r= -.39, p=.01) and
unpleasant (r= -.39, p=.01) odors. Our results show anxiety levels,
but not odor pleasantness, to influence olfactory detection.
Acknowledgements: This study was supported by the FRSQ
(VLB), CIHR (JF), NSERC (FL).
#P183
POSTER SESSION V:
TRIGEMINAL SYSTEM; BEHAVIOR
AND PSYCHOPHYSICS; ODORANT
RECEPTORS & OLFACTION PERIPHERY
Strong and Poor Predictors of Odor Recognition Memory
Performance: An Item Analysis of the California Odor
Learning Test
Catherine Sumida
1
, Ariana Stickel
1
, Karalani Cross
1
,
Claire Murphy
1,2
1
San Diego State University San Diego, CA, USA,
2
University of California San Diego San Diego, CA, USA
Olfactory recognition memory has demonstrated value as a
predictor of cognitive deficits, particularly in older adults.
However, olfactory recognition memory is a complex cognitive
process, with an integral component being odor identification.
Odor Identification involves retrieval of a meaningful, previously
encoded, odor label from memory when presented an odor
stimulus. The current study explored the recognition task of the
California Odor Learning Test (COLT)—an analog to the
California Verbal Learning Test, developed to evaluate normal and
pathological changes in odor memory arising from age. Subjects
were 168 adults (Mean age = 66.23 SD = 10.89). Item difficulty
and discrimination indices were computed for List A items of the
COLT that were presented during the odor learning trials. The mean
discrimination index is .3563 (SD = .0963 Range= .1220-.4872).
Based on the item’s discrimination index, items were separated into
quartiles. A one-way between subjects ANOVA was performed to
analyze the differences in the discrimination indices among
quartiles
F
(3,13) = 19.046,
p
<.001. Bonferroni post hoc analyses
revealed difference in discrimination indices between the highest
quartile and the lowest quartile
t
(1,18) = -.228
p
<.001. Therefore
items in the highest quartile versus the lowest quartile are
significantly better at discriminating between participants who do
well on odor recognition memory versus participants who do
poorly. Acknowledgements: Supported by NIH grant AG04085-24
and DC02064-14 to Claire Murphy and P50AG005131 to the
UCSD ADRC.
88 | AChemS Abstracts 2012
Abstracts are printed as submitted by the author(s)
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