AUTHOR=Risso Paola , Covarrubias Rodriguez Mario , Bordegoni Monica , Gallace Alberto TITLE=Development and Testing of a Small-Size Olfactometer for the Perception of Food and Beverages in Humans JOURNAL=Frontiers in Digital Humanities VOLUME=5 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/digital-humanities/articles/10.3389/fdigh.2018.00007 DOI=10.3389/fdigh.2018.00007 ISSN=2297-2668 ABSTRACT=

Studies of olfactory perception and about the way humans interact with, and perceive food and beverages require appropriate olfactory devices. Moreover, small size, and portable interfaces are needed within the context of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), to enrich and complete the design of different mediated experiences. In this paper, the authors tested a new portable olfactory device for the orthonasal administration of smells. The main aim was to verify if the experience generated by the odors delivered through such device can affect people's taste perception. Once established that people could perceive odors using the olfactory device, a group of participants was asked to taste two different types of food (Experiment 1) and three types of beverages (Experiment 2) and to evaluate them on a number of perceptual-dimensions (such as pleasantness, freshness, sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness). The participants could taste the food and the beverage without the presence of additional olfactory stimuli, or under conditions where olfactory stimuli (the smell of chocolate or citrus) were also presented using the device. The results showed that the participants' evaluation of food and beverages was significantly modulated by the concurrently presented odors. The experimental results suggest that: (1) the device is effective in controlling the delivery of odors to human participants without the complexity of management that often affect larger odors delivery systems; (2) odors administered by means of such device can have an effects on food and beverage perception, without the need to change their chemical properties.