Natural Sniffing Gives Optimum Odour Perception for Humans

Abstract

The characteristics of human sniffing episodes during odour perception have been described in an earlier paper, where it has been suggested that the techniques used by individuals may be close to those providing optimum perception. To investigate this suggestion, threshold and intensity tests with butanol, cyclohexanone, and pentyl acetate have been carried out on twenty-one subjects. Olfactory responses obtained by using natural sniffing techniques were compared with those where the number of sniffs, interval between sniffs, and size of sniffs were varied. The results indicate that it is very difficult to improve on the efficiency of sniffing techniques of individuals and that a single natural sniff provides as much information about the presence and intensity of an odour as do seven or more sniffs. A single natural sniff and the first sniff of a a natural sniffing episode were shown to have similar characteristics and most significantly both were unaffected by changes in the concentration and type of odour. Overall, the results indicate that humans achieve optimum odour perception during threshold and intensity measures with their natural multiple-sniff technique or with a single sniff. For the ‘average’ human this occurs with a sniff of inhalation rate 30 1 min−1, volume 200 cm3, and duration 0.4 s. The use of several sniffs in a sniffing episode appears to be a confirmatory action rather than a necessary one, except for the perception of odour mixtures where several sniffs are likely to be needed to aid discrimination of the components. Data from the present and earlier study provide the information necessary for the development of a standard olfactometer and standard procedures for measuring the olfactory responses of humans.