UC San Diego

Psychophysical functions for the odor, taste, and flavor of five common flavorings were obtained by the method of magnitude estimation. The stimuli included three simple compounds (vanillin, piperonal, and benzaldehyde) and two complex ones (natural vanilla extract and artificial almond essence). The odor intensity of all the flavorings grew much less rapidly with concentration than did taste intensity. The growth of flavor for the complex substances and piperonal behaved very much like taste. For vanillin and benzaldehyde, the flavor functions resembled taste functions at high concentrations but showed a tendency to flatten at lower concentrations. These findings implied that, at least for some flavorings, the growth of flavor reflects the most salient feature on the particular concentration range studied. At low concentrations odor seems to be the most important feature and so flavor functions are generally flat, but at high concentrations taste becomes the salient feature and so flavor functions steepen.